Cryptocurrency Derivatives Series: CBOE to Take a Break From Bitcoin (XBT) Futures for March Month Expiry

Currently, there has been eye-catchy news amongst the cryptocurrency derivative avenue. CFE is reportedly not coming up with a CBOE’s (Chicago Board Options Exchange) Bitcoin (“XBT”) futures contract for trading March 2019 expires.

The CBOE clarified this news in a statement released on March 14th.

Contemplating CBOE’s re-evaluation as to how the derivatives mechanism perceives trading crypto-assets. They mentioned “CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading. While it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading.”

Last Wednesday was the latest round of CBOE XBT (XBTH19) futures expired. These futures contracts are settled on a predefined date, based on contractual terms. Usually, all CBOE contracts will have to be traded, or settled, before the expiry date and they help in price discovery. There is generally a dip in the trading volume of futures around expiration dates, that coincides with a rise in volatility and potential short/long squeezing.

While the currently listed futures contracts (XBTM19), would expire in June. CBOE also clarifies that all currently listed futures are still kept open for trading.

Currency Strength Index: FxWirePro's hourly BTC spot index is flashing at 44 (which is bullish), hourly USD is at 100 (highly bullish) while articulating at (07:08 GMT). 

For more details on the index, please refer below weblink: http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex