First Bitcoin Futures Contracts Hit The U.S. Market Today

Even though many best cryptocurrency news sites have been reporting and waiting for the Bitcoin futures platform Bakkt to issue its own BTC futures along with the launch, it seems like the platform has been beaten by their competitor – LedgerX. The news today show that LedgerX issued the first Bitcoin futures contract that is physical and within a platform available to all US-based investors.

Officially launching today, the first Bitcoin futures comes in a platform that is open to all US-based investors with a government-issued ID and is not limited to any institutional clients or high-net-worth clients. Despite this, most of the analysts believe that the benefits that physically settled futures contracts bring to the crypto markets come mainly from the institutions that are trading them.

As the latest cryptocurrency news show, there are three main platforms which have been competing to gain the attention of investors interested in trading physically settled Bitcoin futures contracts. However, LedgerX is the first Bitcoin futures platform that launches, along with the ICE-backed Bakkt and the TD Ameritrade-backed ErisX which are its competitors right now – all launching similar products.

The main benefit of a physically settled future contract is that it allows traders to deposit and collect Bitcoin and directly trade the contracts. This is without having to use any USD or fiat currencies as the trading pair, therefore subverting the traditional banking system entirely.

This feature is critical for a decentralized cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Assuming that BTC will one day be utilized as a currency in its own right, the first Bitcoin futures product launched by LedgerX is definitely making waves in both the Bitcoin and altcoin news.

It does appear that there is significant interest in these contracts. LedgerX has previously noted that multiple institutional investors have asked for these contracts in the past. Even though the retail interest in the crypto markets has been diving lately, a lot of analysts and investors are closely watching to see how the interested institutions see the nascent markets.

Sam Doctor, a popular strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors, recently explained that Bakkt could be a major catalyst for institutional demand for BTC. He said:

“We think #Bakkt could be a huge catalyst for institutional participation in the #crypto market. Here are our takeaways from the Bakkt institutional summit yesterday at the NYSE.”