First day of trading Bitcoin Futures

Long-awaited Bitcoin Futures of CME Groups, began trading today with a bullish signal. As the sale price for its January contracts opened above $20,000.

Coming months after the Chicago-based derivatives exchange operator first revealed plans for dedicated bitcoin offerings. The launch took place at 12 a.m. CET. At that time, the opening price for the January contract was $20,650, $1,150 over the last price on CME’s reference rate ($19,500).

More than 200 contracts were bought during the first hours.

The operator’s site shows that one February 2018 contract and one March 2018 contract were sold; along with two scheduled to expire in June. 

Contracts have continued trading at a premium against the price of Bitcoin; which according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) was $19,400 when CME launched trading of the Bitcoin Futures.

Along with last week’s bitcoin futures kick-off from CBOE; the past week has now seen the launch of multiple products aimed at institutional investors. As previously reported, other institutional giants including Nasdaq and Wall Street’s Cantor Fitzgerald are expected to launch products around bitcoin in 2018.

In a departure from the initially rocky launch for CBOE, which saw its website become briefly inaccessible due to significant traffic, CME’s site remained stable after the open. Further, over the course of the first hour, bitcoin saw a sell-off, with the price declining to a low of $18,424.