CBOE Global Markets president Chris Concannon said that Ethereum (ETH[1]) futures, which the company has been “considering” since December 2017, could soon be offered, Bloomberg[2] reported Thursday, June 14.
Concannon’s comment follows the news that a senior U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC[3]) official stated[4] that leading altcoin Ethereum will not be regulated as a security.
CBOE’s president said that the SEC’s stance could mean that the US regulator would allow the options exchange to add Ether futures to their portfolio:
“We are pleased with the SEC’s decision to provide clarity with respect to current Ether transactions. This announcement clears a key stumbling block for Ether futures, the case for which we’ve been considering since we launched the first Bitcoin futures in December 2017.”
CBOE’s December launch[5] of Bitcoin[6] (BTC) futures sparked a large rally for the cryptocurrency — whose price at the time on Dec. 10 rose from around $15,000 to around $16,800 — bringing so much trading volume to the site that it temporarily went down. The first futures contract expired[7] on Jan. 17 at a price of around $10,900, making it a win for bears.
Bitcoin futures were in the news this week for other reasons, as Fundstrat’s Tom Lee[8] pointed[9] to their contract expiration as a possible reason for Bitcoin’s recently sinking price. Bitcoin is currently trading for around $6,541, down a little more than 1 percent over a 24 hour period to press time.
