BitMEX Will Launch BTC-Settled Futures Tracking ETH/USD

The major cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX will launch a new feature which will focus on Bitcoin-settled futures for tracking the Ether price against the US dollar. This is essentially a new Ether (ETH) based futures contract on its trading platform.

As the crypto news show, an April 24 announcement presents the new derivative contract which will feature a fixed Bitcoin (BTC) multiplier which will be unaffected by the Ether price in US dollars. BitMEX explained that the feature allows traders to long and short Ether’s USD exchange rate without actually having to hold the ETH cryptocurrency or dollars in their accounts.

“Traders post margin in XBT [Bitcoin], and earn or lose Bitcoin as the ETH/USD rate changes,” the announcement explains.

The exchange also plans to launch the ETH/USD futures contracts with a maximum leverage of 50x on May 5, 2020. The firm promises that the “new product will be the only one of its kind available in the market.”

BitMEX will launch the new derivative contract and combine the Quanto feature of the exchange and its ETHUSD perpetual swap contract with the expiry and settlement of traditional futures contracts. The contract expires quarterly, just like the altcoin futures contract by the firm.

As you probably know if you read our Bitcoin news, BitMEX is well known by the old-school BTC derivatives traders as the platform which used to be the most widely used for trading these kinds of contracts. However, as we reported this week, the exchange is continuing to lose derivatives trading market share to Binance Futures.

Data analysis from mid-April shows that BitMEX has been bleeding Bitcoins since Black Thursday. This suggests that traders lost faith in the platform after it malfunctioned during the major market downturn. Some even believed that this was – in fact – purposeful market manipulation on the exchange’s part.

All in all, BitMEX has been known as a major player on the market and an exchange with a fair amount of daily users. Some people know it as the first exchange to launch a perpetual contract – allowing people to forget about worrying when it comes to rolling their position at a fixed point in the future without any expiry.