Institutional cryptocurrency exchange Bakkt wants to roll out a testing phase for trading in bitcoin futures early July this year. This was announced by CEO Kelly Loeffler on Monday. The bitcoin futures will be traded on a federally regulated futures exchange in collaboration with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
Bakkt has requested regulatory approval for at least two types of futures contracts: daily settlement bitcoin futures and monthly bitcoin futures. These futures are a legal agreement to buy and sell at a predetermined price at a certain time in the future. The buyer and the seller are not known to each other.
Bakkt is supported by the New York Stock Exchange, but the project's launch didn't go all that smooth. Originally Bakkt has plans to launch its bitcoin futures in January, but then decided to hold back for a while. Now with the cryptocurrency market in a positive mood, the times seems right and testing will begin in July.
At the same time other exchanges have already launched their bitcoin futures. CBOE launched bitcoin futures trading, but that didn't have a major impact. The timing wasn't that right either, with the crypto market in a downtrend. Nasdaq also wants to launch bitcoin futures. In Europe the Boerse Stuttgart Group launched crypto trading as well, using their own Bison application for smartphones. Even though they don't support futures.
Posted from my blog: https://www.nederob.nl/2019/05/14/bakkt-bitcoin-futures-to-launch-in-july/