Yesterday, CBOE Global Markets Inc. started trading Bitcoin futures, which pushed the cryptocurrency’s price and led to disruptions in the work of the CBOE website.
Bitcoin futures for January delivery were priced at $15,000, and during the first six minutes of the session, its price jumped 11% to $16,660. The value of the futures fell and recovered – at some point, it reached $18,490. At the end of the trading session, the futures were worth $15,860.
During the first three hours of trading, about 1,000 Bitcoin futures contracts were completed.
The stock exchange was forced to suspend trading for two minutes due to the high volatility of trades, said the Wall Street Journal referring to a CBOE representative. The exchange can suspend trading if the price fluctuations of contracts exceed 10%.
The cryptocurrency itself went up by 8% to $15,740.25 within 7 minutes after the start of futures trading. On Monday, the Bitcoin rate is $ 16,572.64.
The high interest of traders in Bitcoin futures caused problems in the work of the CBOE website.
“Due to the high traffic on our website, visitors to www.cboe.com may find that it is slower than usual and at some moments may even be temporarily unavailable. All trading systems function normally,” said a CBOE representative.
Another major exchange operator, CME Group Inc., plans to start trading Bitcoin futures at the end of this week.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) authorized the CBOE and CME to launch Bitcoin futures on December 1.
Bitcoin futures are an important step for the cryptocurrency. However, experts warn that the new market is not protected from hacker attacks and manipulation schemes.
One of the main risks, according to experts, is that the Bitcoin exchanges are unregulated.
However, the CBOE and CME argue that the stock markets with which they operate are reliable enough. All five stock exchanges, based on which CBOE and CME rely their futures contracts, have taken measures to prevent money laundering.