On the Chicago Stock Exchange (CBOE), the last Bitcoin futures contract (XBT) expires on June 19, after which the cryptocurrency derivatives trade will cease.
CBOE was the first American commodity exchange to place Bitcoin futures on its trading platform. That was about a year and a half ago, on December 10, 2017. A week later, the Chicago Commodity Exchange (CME) announced a successful listing of a similar instrument.
Then, in December 2017, the head of CBOE Global Markets, Chris Concannon said that cryptocurrency derivatives have all chances to become a revolutionary factor in the field of traditional finance and help the development and dissemination of digital currencies among wider circles.
“According to our expectations, over the next 10 years, the cryptocurrency market will be transformed into something much larger,” he said then.
However, in March of this year, CBOE representatives announced that they want to take a pause in the listing of futures on Bitcoin. As they explained, they need to re-evaluate the approach to this tool.
“CBOE does not plan to continue offering its customers digital asset derivatives”, a company spokesman said.
Meanwhile, at CME, Bitcoin futures trading volumes are steadily growing, setting all new records. For example, recently, company representatives reported that May was the best month for futures contracts at BTC since their launch. The record was broken both in terms of trading volume and open interest.
Experts believe that the CBOE had to stop providing such tools due to the complete dominance of CME in this area. According to them, this is due to the asset valuation method used by the exchange. CBOE relied only on Gemini data, while CME collected data from several trading platforms, which strengthened traders' confidence in the greater stability of the quotes of this exchange.