Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) has revealed some of the specifications of its planned Cboe Bitcoin Futures.

CBOE in August announced its plans to launch cash-settled bitcoin futures on CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE) by the end of this year or early 2018, subject to regulatory review by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It partnered with New York-based digital asset exchange Gemini that will provide it and its affiliates with an exclusive global license to use Gemini’s bitcoin market data for bitcoin derivatives and indices.

CBOE has now detailed the potential contract specifications in an online post. The key highlights include:

• XBT listing
• Contract multiplier is 1
• Minimum tick for a directional, non-spread trade is 10 points or $10, while a spread trade will have a tick of 0.01 bitcoin or $0.01
• Weekly as well as quarterly contracts would be available

“The question I am constantly hearing is, “How will the futures prices relate to spot bitcoin pricing”, and the best (and most honest) answer I can give is, “I don’t know”. I’ve done academic work on the launch of new listed products in the past and prior assumptions about new markets often are off the mark. I’ve heard arguments for the futures trading at both a premium and a discount to the spot price, personally I think the best strategy is to see what the market tells us when bitcoin futures are available for trading,” CBOE's Russel Rhoads wrote in the online post.

More recently, CME Group has revealed its plans to launch bitcoin futures in the fourth quarter of 2017, pending all relevant regulatory review periods. The new contract will be cash-settled, based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR).