New York-based corporation, which is already trading CBOE bitcoin futures, now offers its clients one more opportunity to invest in bitcoins.
E*Trade Financial Corporation has broadened its offer with a new product this Tuesday: the company announced the start of trading of the CME bitcoin futures. That is not the first time E*Trade deals with the cryptocurrencies. Last month the New York-based company launched the CBOE bitcoin futures trading.
Both CBOE and CME futures got approved by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. CBOE futures are traded under the ticker symbol ‘XBT’, CME futures are known as ‘BTC’. E*Trade set the same intra-day initial margin requirement for both of them at 80%.
Trading is supported by online tools which are comfortable to use on both desktop and mobile devices. E*Trade offers not only the bitcoin futures trading but the support from licensed specialists. They have created a special research center which is powered by the CME Group.
The company names a number of advantages of bitcoin futures trading. The trading is almost non-stop: 24 hours 6 days a week. Bitcoin futures are free of short sale restrictions; they do not require minimum account value for multiple trading during a day. This seems to be a profitable business. Some key players of the market, like TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., have already joined the bitcoin futures market.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange was the second company to launch bitcoin futures. The pioneer in this sphere is CBOE, the Chicago Board Options Exchange. They opened trading in bitcoin futures on the 10th of December.
A week later CME joined the market with its own futures. Both launches of trading went hand-in-hand with the growth of Bitcoin: CBOE helped the cryptocurrency recover from a significant decrease, while CME bitcoin futures debut was accompanied by the surpassing of $20,000 level.
The launch of bitcoin futures did not come unnoticed. The whole cryptocurrency sphere enjoys a period of amazing popularity. CBOE and CME have made an important step. The launch of bitcoin futures turns the cryptocurrencies into investment mainstream.
For long years bitcoin had been a geek issue and only a few people could predict its popularity. Everything changed. Today bitcoin is discussed at every level: politicians and businessmen, students and factory workers.
Bitcoin futures may become the key to implementing bitcoin into the standard trading routine. Even though bitcoin futures were introduced to the public even less than a month ago some governments have already reacted to the new product.
The attitude varies strongly: form hearty acceptance in Belarus to the lack of trust in Hong Kong. The view of investors also vary: lots of people treat bitcoin futures as a volatile asset which is putting them at risk. Anyway, it is hard to believe that E*Trade Financial Corporation is interested in charity – they definitely see the potential of bitcoin futures.
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