In a transfer to increase get right of entry to to Bitcoin (BTC) futures for retail traders, CME Crew has unveiled a brand new, smaller-sized futures contract dubbed the “Bitcoin Friday Futures” (BFF).
Consistent with Bloomberg, the cash-settled BFF can be priced at one-Fiftieth the scale of a complete BTC, these days round $1,200 in keeping with contract. That is considerably extra reasonably priced than CME’s current Bitcoin futures, priced on the complete Bitcoin price.
CME Unveils Smaller ‘BFF’ Contracts
Giovanni Vicioso, CME Crew’s world head of cryptocurrency merchandise, defined the reason at the back of the mission, highlighting the rising call for for scaled-down funding tools amongst retail investors.
Vicioso highlighted the luck of CME’s current micro BTC and Ethereum futures, noting a surge in retail engagement, with volumes for micro-Bitcoin futures witnessing a 200% uptick this 12 months in comparison to 2023.
Acknowledging the panorama of retail funding personal tastes, Vicioso elaborated at the importance of the brand new BTC Friday futures in facilitating “larger accessibility and affordability for retail individuals.”
CME calls the brand new contracts “BFF,” which stands for Bitcoin Friday Futures but in addition playfully references the typical “very best pal perpetually” acronym.
Vicioso stated the pleasant moniker was once intentional, noting, “while you imagine a product that we’re launching that are supposed to have retail enchantment, I like that BFF moniker.” The brand new BFF contracts are pending regulatory evaluation, however are anticipated to release on September thirtieth.
In a similar fashion, the Nasdaq seeks regulatory approval to release choices contracts tied to a Bitcoin index with the USA Securities and Trade Fee (SEC).
Nasdaq Targets To Introduce Bitcoin Index Choices
Reuters reported on Tuesday that the replace operator has filed with the USA SEC to provide choices at the CME CF Bitcoin Actual-Time Index evolved by means of CF Benchmarks to trace BTC futures and choices to be had at the CME Crew replace.
The proposed Nasdaq BTC Index Choices would offer traders with a brand new technique to achieve publicity to and hedge worth actions, complementing the suite of Bitcoin-based exchange-traded finances (ETFs) and futures merchandise that experience hit the marketplace in fresh months.
The Nasdaq submitting comes for the reason that SEC has now not licensed choices tied to any newly introduced spot Bitcoin ETFs, together with BlackRock’s iShares BTC Accept as true with ETF.
Exchanges to begin with implemented for exchange-traded fund choices in a while after the underlying finances debuted in January however have since withdrawn and refiled the ones packages in line with “SEC comments.”
In the meantime, Reuters experiences that investors have grew to become to choice BTC-linked merchandise, similar to leveraged ETFs, to get the choices publicity they would like. Then again, Matt Hougan, CIO at Asset Supervisor and ETF issuer Bitwise, believes that having choices on a BTC index can be a precious addition to the crypto derivatives marketplace.
When writing, the biggest cryptocurrency in the marketplace has fallen again to the $61,600 after hitting a one-month top of $65,000 on Sunday, recording a three% drop within the 24-hour period of time.
Featured symbol from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com