Cryptocurrency Derivatives Series: Latest bitcoin derivative trend amid price turbulence

Thanks to Year-2019 that has been instrumental for bitcoin miners, exchanges, traders and investors, BTCUSDprice surged from the lows of 3122 to the recent highs of 13880 levels (i.e. mammoth returns of 344 in percentage terms that too within a span of 6 months or so).

Thereafter, the pair is sliding despite registering its most profitable quarter performance since December 2017. It is currently trading at $10,990 levels, the slump of more than 27% on a weekly adjusted timeframe. Such slumps dragged the bitcoin’s market capitalization close to $196.15 billion. 

Amid such a price turbulence, we’ve witnessed quite a few recent developments in the cryptocurrency derivatives, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) cleared Bitcoin derivatives provider LedgerX to offer physically settled Bitcoin futures. 

The announcement means that New York-based LedgerX will eventually list bitcoin futures contracts and offer its products to both retail traders and institutional clients.

Meanwhile, the ErisX Bitcoin futures product will be physically settled in BTC, not cash, as is the case with the current regulated Bitcoin futures product offered by the CME. This means traders receive actual Bitcoin at the end of their contracts following initial payment with dollars. New Bitcoin is purchased by LedgerX with each new speculative contract agreement made. This implies that the LedgerX should create a new wave of buying pressure for BTC once it is launched at a yet unspecified date.

Well, as per the twitter source, Bitcoin’s new volume persuaded the futures market, CME bitcoin futures observe massive growth of 63.5k contracts traded during last week. On the other hand, CBOE, ahead of bitcoin’s stern bull run, announced to halt its bitcoin futures. The underlying price of bitcoin futures has recently regained the momentum to hit back above $5.25k and signaling the upside momentum on the ascending price curve. 

Notably, The resurgence in the recent past has prompted futures contract at CME Group Inc showing emerging prospects. 

As you can observe CME’s twitter handle, these contracts have reportedly shown a jump of about 230% which is equivalent to 318k Bitcoins. CME has certainly stated that most of the futures trading volume on April 09, when it hits the highest record. Courtesy: BNC

Currency Strength Index: FxWirePro's hourly BTC spot index is inching towards -132 levels (which is bearish), while hourly USD spot index was at 47 (mildly bullish) while articulating (at 10:44 GMT). 

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