Bakkt, the long-awaited Bitcoin (BTC) futures platform from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), has begun testing the delivery of BTC futures, according to an official tweet on July 22. Per the tweet, user acceptance testing for Bitcoin daily and monthly futures began today with participants from around the world. The platform initially announced the launch of futures testing in June, when Bakkt COO Adam White stated, “On July 22, two days after Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary, Bakkt will initiate user acceptance testing for its Bitcoin futures listed and traded at ICE Futures U.S. and cleared at ICE Clear US.” White then …

Managing director and quant strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors Sam Doctor suggested in a Twitter post published on July 19 that Bakkt’s Bitcoin (BTC) futures contracts will launch this quarter. According to the post, which includes a summary of Fundstrat’s takeaways from the Bakkt Digital Asset Summit held on July 18, the firm’s futures will launch in the current quarter. The launch is set to follow tests announced last month, which are scheduled to start next week. The firm believes that the launch will be a catalyst to accelerate entry of traditional institutional investors. The post notes: “There appears to …

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of top crypto exchange Binance, has revealed the company plans to launch a futures trading platform, with initial support for BTC/USDT contracts at a leverage of up to 20x. The CEO made his announcement during a keynote speech delivered at the Asia Blockchain Summit in Taipei earlier today, July 2. According to Cointelegraph’s reporter at the scene, Zhao — better known by his industry moniker “CZ” — indicated that while there is as yet no exact launch date for the new “Binance Futures” trading platform, a simulation test version is expected within a few weeks. Screenshot of …

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group has announced more record-breaking highs for bitcoin (BTC) futures in an official Twitter post on June 28. The futures in question are standardized contracts that bind a party to buying or selling bitcoin at some set time after signing. According to the post, CME Bitcoin futures hit $1.7 billion in notional value traded on June 26, a 30% increase from its last recorded high. The open interest for BTC futures now sits at 6,069 contracts, reportedly as a result of institutional interest. New CME bitcoin futures record. Source: Twitter A week prior, on June …

Bitcoin (BTC) was already trading above $9,000 when Facebook formally unveiled its Libra cryptocurrency protocol. Despite many commentators arguing the current bitcoin price spike is due to the social media giant, a glance at data puts bitcoin’s momentum far ahead of Libra. As Cointelegraph reported, Facebook revealed a website for its cryptocurrency scheme on June 18, when BTC/USD was hovering around $9,200. After the website went live, the largest cryptocurrency actually dropped in price for several days before regaining ground to surge to current highs above $11,300. The bitcoin bull market began on April 1, seeing several peak-and-trough cycles but …

Bitcoin (BTC) futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) briefly broke $10,000 on Friday, June 21, according to data from trading analytics platform TradingView. CME bitcoin futures 24-hour chart. Source: TradingView BTC futures reached a new high for 2019 of around $10,050, breaking $10,000 for the first time since early March 2018, when bitcoin was trading above $11,000 per coin. The new 2019 record has grown in line with the new highs of CME bitcoin futures total open interest (OI) that has reportedly reached around $273 million after CME reported new all-time high of 5,311 contracts totalling $256 million earlier …

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group has released data showing that open interest in Bitcoin futures is rising, as per an official Twitter post on June 18. Interest in BTC futures over time: https://twitter.com/CMEGroup/status/1141015074062110721 According to CME, bitcoin (BTC) open interest spiked on June 17 with an all-time high of 5,311 contracts totalling 26,555 BTC, or approximately $246 million at press time. Futures are standardized contracts that bind a party to buying or selling some asset at a predetermined date. Notably, the CME group also remarked in the Twitter post that BTC futures appears to be gaining popularity with institutional …

United Kingdom-based interdealer broker TP ICAP will sell bitcoin (BTC) financial derivatives, Bloomberg reports on June 17. Per the report, the ICAP unit of the firm now allows its customers to buy or sell the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) bitcoin futures. In June, the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s bitcoin futures will expire with no current plans for renewal, leaving the CME as the sole offerer of BTC futures. TP ICAP also reportedly expects to add non-deliverable forwards tied to the largest cryptocurrency, and then plans to open desks in Asia and the United States. Bloomberg claims that the company took …

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) thinks the Bitcoin (BTC) industry has changed considerably since 2017, citing an increase in institutional interest, Bloomberg reported on June 15. The publication quoted a report led by managing director of global market strategy of the United States’ largest bank, Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, in which researchers examined recent phenomena surrounding cryptocurrency exchanges. As Cointelegraph reported, an investigation by asset manager Bitwise in March — and again last month — revealed that a significant amount of trade volume reported by exchanges was likely fake. Citing JPM, Bloomberg notes that if only 5% of May’s $725 billion number is accurate, …

Institutional cryptocurrency platform Bakkt will begin testing its first product, physically-delivered bitcoin (BTC) futures on July 22, the company announced in a blog post on June 13. Bakkt, which has seen multiple delays over regulatory compliance since its original announcement in August 2018, will offer futures as the first in a series of offerings, full details of which remain unclear. “On July 22, two days after Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary, Bakkt will initiate user acceptance testing for its bitcoin futures listed and traded at ICE Futures U.S. and cleared at ICE Clear US,” chief operating officer Adam White wrote in …

The number of open contracts for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) bitcoin (BTC) futures is reportedly at an all-time high, cryptocurrency news outlet Coindesk reported on June 3. According to visible data released by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data, the number of open positions for the aforementioned future contract in the week from May 27 to June 3 is 5,190. Coindesk claims that this is the highest number of open positions that CME’s bitcoin futures have ever reported and a 7% increase over the previous week. Per the report, the recent increase in futures trading activity …

At the 1997 edition of the annual Worldwide Developers Conference — an event put together by iPhone-maker Apple Inc. to communicate directly with its community of developers and users — a participant asked founder and then-CEO Steve Jobs the following question: "What do we do about the press? Wall Street Journal reporters get up in the morning, sell Apple short and then go write stories about us. And, it’s clear that it’s perception versus reality. They don’t know s--- about operating systems. They don’t know anything about tools. They don’t know what’s going on in the future. They don’t know …