All You Need To Know About Today’s CME Bitcoin Futures Contract Launch

Following last week’s ‘successful’ launch of Cboe Bitcoin futures, CME will begin trading of their own ‘more institutional’Bitcoin futures contract today.
Here are some of the differences between the products to be offered by the exchange operators.
CONTRACT UNIT
The Cboe Bitcoin Futures Contract will use the ticker XBT and will equal one bitcoin. The CME Bitcoin Futures Contract will use the ticker BTC and will equal five bitcoins. PRICING AND SETTLEMENT Both Cboe’s and CME’s bitcoin futures contracts will be settled in U. S. dollars, allowing exposure to the bitcoin without actually having to hold any of the cryptocurrency. Cboe’s contract will be priced off of a single auction at 4 p.m. Eastern time (2100 GMT) on the final settlement date on the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange. CME’s contract will be priced off of the CME Bitcoin Reference Rate, an index that references pricing data from cryptocurrency exchanges, currently made up of Bitstamp, GDAX, itBit and Kraken.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Dec 17, 2017.