CME Takes Its Bitcoin Options Live, Competing With ICE's Bakkt

Published on by Coindesk | Published on

Chicago exchange CME Group has announced its highly anticipated bitcoin options are now open for trading.

Options on CME's bitcoin futures contracts launched on the CME Globex around 15:00 UTC Monday.

Each contract, quoted in U.S. dollars, represents five bitcoin and is cleared centrally to avoid counterparty risk.

CME relies on trade flow data from several of the large bitcoin exchanges to accurately track bitcoin's price.

Bitcoin derivatives have been available on multiple cryptocurrency exchanges since at least 2014, but CME was one of the first platforms to offer investors regulated products when it first launched its cash-settled bitcoin futures in December 2017.Bitcoin options had a strong start to 2019.

The Binance-backed derivatives platform FTX announced Sunday it had launched its own bitcoin options contracts.

CME revealed plans to launch bitcoin options days before the launch of Bakkt's bitcoin futures in September.

Bitcoin hit its all-time high of near $20,000 soon after the original release of CME futures, but it plunged nearly $2,000 following the launch of Bakkt's futures contracts, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.

Data from the exchange show open interest for bitcoin futures increased 69 percent from year-end until last Friday, hitting a seven-month high.

Bitcoin's price has not moved on the news of the options launch.

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