CBOE Global Markets plans to expand beyond bitcoin futures, President of the Chicago-based exchange said at a Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton, Florida. “The vision is to have a crypto complex,” Concannon said.
Introduced in December, CBOE’s bitcoin futures contracts trade thousands of times a day, representing tens of millions of dollars of the cryptocurrency. Never has a new product at CBOE exceeded the level of interest and anticipation around bitcoin futures, CEO Ed Tilly said at the time of the launch.
The Chicago-based derivatives exchange is mapping out other cryptocurrency products, such as options on futures contracts and exchange-traded funds, Tilly said in December. Now, CBOE’s President Chris Concannon has signaled big plans of expanding into a “crypto complex”.
“The vision is to have a crypto complex,” CBOE President Chris Concannon said. Cryptocurrencies are “here to stay,” he added.
Concannon and Tilly didn’t specify the cryptocurrencies they’re targeting, but said their decision would depend on demand from customers and conversations with regulators. Apart from futures contracts on cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin, CBOE would also like to list exchange-traded notes and funds tied to cryptocurrencies, Tilly said.
Speaking at the same futures industry conference, CBOE’s rival, CME Group, took a more measured approach regarding cryptocurrency products. CME also launched bitcoin futures contracts back in December, but is currently favoring a more cautious stance towards expanding to other cryptocurrency products.
Nasdaq on the other hand is interested in offering bitcoin derivatives, but CEO Adena Friedman said the Nasdaq bitcoin futures contract would have to be different from the CBOE and CME offerings, that track the price of bitcoin and operate in reference to its future price.
“We are continuing to investigate the idea of a cryptocurrency futures (contract) with a partner and we continue to look at the risk management around that, making sure we are putting the right protocols in place, making sure there’s proper demand, and that the contract is different from what’s already out there,” Friedman said.
“What we might look at is more of a total return futures, so it’s a little bit of a different construct,” Friedman said, explaining that what Nasdaq has in mind is “more of an investment than a tracking stock”.
