In Big Adoption News, Nasdaq Launching Bitcoin Futures

Not content to sit back and let CME Group Inc. and Cboe Global Markets, Inc. hog the bitcoin futures spotlight, Nasdaq Inc. will be offering BTC futures of its own in 2018.

That’s according to a bombshell new report in The Wall Street Journal. Sources with knowledge of Nasdaq’s impending maneuver into institutionalized bitcoin speculation confirmed that the futures in question will be listed on Nasdaq’s NFX exchange by the end of Q3 2018.

And Nasdaq is meticulously trying to provide a better futures product than CME Group, for example.

That’s because the Nasdaq’s planned BTC futures will be based on 50 indexes — not the four that the CME’s coming futures will be based on. To this end, Nasdaq’s bitcoin futures will be more robust and in tune with markets.

Source tells me Nasdaq's bitcoin futures product will be based on 50 indexes. More than both Cboe and CME. https://t.co/u3rFdZYWH0 — Frank Chaparro (@fintechfrank) November 29, 2017

This move into the crypto ecosystem goes against CEO Adena Friedman’s recent October 2017 comments, wherein she said the exchange “doesn’t tend to get engaged in the bleeding edge” — with the “bleeding edge” here being the cryptocurrency space in general.

Caught between a rock and a hard place in the wake of the WSJ‘s revelations while still not having made an official announcement, Friedman was diplomatic in her response to the latest report:

“I would just say that we have been having active dialogue with a lot of clients and with partners about what might be possible over time … [We’re looking at] the future. That allows for hedging and other trading strategies, and there is also the ETF (exchange traded fund).”

So it’s clear the world’s second largest stock exchange is keeping its options — and its mind — open.

And, of course, once these NFX bitcoin futures materialize, it will be an incredibly legitimizing and stabilizing force for Bitcoin as a whole.







TLDR: The march of mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies continues, as the Nasdaq stock exchange will soon be offering bitcoin futures.

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