ErisX, the Wall Street-backed cryptocurrency exchange operator, said in an alert to potential clients that its market for cryptocurrency futures will kick-off today, on December 17.
Wall Street-backed cryptocurrency exchange operator ErisX, alerted its users and potential clients on Monday that its market for cryptocurrency futures will restart Tuesday.
The announcement says:
“This Market Notice serves to notify Participants of Eris Exchange, LLC (“Eris Exchange” or “Exchange”) that the Exchange has set forth the following trading hours for Futures Digital Currency Products beginning Tuesday, 12/17/2019 until further notice. Monday – Friday 8:00 AM CT (Central time) to 4:00 PM CT (Central time)”
ErisX entered the cryptocurrency exchange world back in October 2018, pledging to provide a Wall Street-grade trading experience for futures and spot cryptocurrency trading.
However, during the second half of this year, ErisX was pretty much quiet even though it wooed investors such as Castle Island and Dragonfly Capital Partners, closed a $20 million Series B in April and opened up its spot market for trading.
In the meantime, its rival Bakkt went on with several derivatives tied to the Bitcoin market, including a physically delivered future and option contract.
There is still no official answer about the eventual product that could be launched today.
To differentiate itself from other crypto-native exchanges, ErisX didn’t go with advertising itself directly to individual traders but went on to capture wave from large brokers like TD Ameritrade. In 2018, when the crypto market was very much down, it was exactly TD Ameritrade that showed big trust. One of the leading global retail brokerages has already in October 2018 announced its investing in ErisX, which was then owned by Chicago-based derivatives market Eris Exchange LLC. Among other backers were such financial giants as DRW Holdings Inc., Virtu Financial Inc. and Cboe Global Markets (CBOE).
In July this year, ErisX announced that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has granted it a derivatives clearing organization (DCO) license. The regulatory agency that has jurisdiction over futures markets granted ErisX Clearing the license under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).
Executive vice president of trading and education Steve Quirk then commented:
“Our retail clients are seeking to access and trade digital currency products in the same way they do with traditional capital markets — through a legitimate, regulated and transparent exchange.”
After that, in October, ErisX partnered with FIS in order to use the tech vendor’s back-office services to support its crypto futures contracts.
ErisX then said this cooperation is focused on ensuring that its institutional client base can process digital asset derivatives products through existing back-office workflows. FIS completed integration and started testing ErisX products on 23 September.
With getting this license, ErisX achieved its second major enterprise goal planned for 2019. The first key enterprise goal achieved this year was the launching of the company’s spot market. When the futures on digital assets launch later in the year, ErisX is well prepared. The company will provide the market with one unified platform for both spot and futures.
Many saw the licensing as a positive step regarding the development and maturation of the markets. CFTC is looked upon as something that enables different companies offering digital assets services to operate in the market.
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