Nasdaq Plans to Launch Bitcoin Futures in 2019

Bitcoin saw one of its biggest dips in recent times when it fell below $4000 temporarily. It’s a huge dip from the high of $20,000 it hit about eleven months ago.

Prices began to fall last year, and the trend has continued as the cryptocurrency is yet to redevelop its lost strength. However, this downfall hasn’t stopped investors from coming up with newer ideas.

Despite the confusion, Nasdaq, one of the biggest US stock exchanges, still has plans to launch Bitcoin futures.

The SE intends to release the futures in the first quarter of 2019, if the report from Bloomberg is to be believed.

More About the Rumors

While the publication shied away from naming its two sources, it claimed that “momentum was building towards a potential launch early next year.”

We have been hearing rumours for a while now. While the possibility of Bitcoin futures looked dim when the cryptocurrency reached below $4,000, Nasdaq seems to be adamant on going ahead with the launch as it is “betting on sustained interest.”

According to reports, Nasdaq “has been working to satisfy the concerns of the U.S.’s main swaps regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC], before launching the contracts.”

What are futures?

Futures are an agreement to buy and sell an asset – in this case, Bitcoin – on a specific date (in the future) at a specific price. This means that once the contract is signed, the buyers and the seller have to carry it out on the agreed-upon price, regardless of what the current market looks like at the time of the contract execution.

We first heard of Bitcoin futures in the last quarter of 2017 when CME Group and CBOE launched such futures in 2017. Following this, Nasdaq also announced its intention to launch Bitcoin futures by mid-2018 but the plan did not materialise. The hope is that it’ll be launched as soon as Q1 2019.

Nasdaq’s plans might see the light of the day alongside multiple major competitors in the field, including one of its main competitors, Bakkt, who are now working on launching physical Bitcoin futures in the next couple of months.

Jeffrey Sprecher, chairman of NYSE, the stock exchange that owns Bakkt, has open about digital currencies survival and has declared that “the Bakkt futures contract will help Bitcoin traders establish a trusted price. Bitcoin now trades at different prices on different exchanges, many of which are unregulated.”

What Does it Mean for Bitcoin?

Don’t give up on Bitcoin just yet. It might be down, but it’s definitely not out.  Wall Street appears to be confident, which suggests that the recent volatility in the crypto market isn’t a concern. Also, with Bitcoin Futures launching in 2019, prices may increase one more time.