TL;DR: How will cryptocurrency adoption actually happen among merchants, especially when price volatility seems to be a giant discouraging factor? CEO Mark Lamb and his exchange, CoinFLEX, might have an answer with their emphasis on physically delivered bitcoin futures. It’s a compelling and often missed aspect, and Lamb is one of the most articulate people in the space to help listeners make sense of it all. This episode is available embedded in the article below, and on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Breaker, PocketCasts, PodBean, and Overcast.

Physically Delivered Bitcoin Futures and Merchant Adoption

Billing themselves as “The world’s first physically delivered cryptocurrency futures exchange” means a lot of eyes are on CoinFLEX. And if they’re not the “first” on some technicality, they’re early enough to warrant those looks for many reasons.

The basic idea of CoinFLEX is to effectively eliminate cash price settlement risk, which can be the source of all sorts of gaming within the speculative industry. That basic notion of flattening a notoriously manipulated playing field has led CoinFLEX and its CEO Mark Lamb to come up with other innovations.

Since formally opening for business at the beginning of the present year, the exchange has been steadily building, innovating. They launched a proprietary SLP token, FLEX Coin, available on their platform and as a kind of trading coupon, a way to reward loyal, active traders.

Lamb and CoinFLEX also created a neologism, the IFO. An initial futures offering, then, is futures on anticipated coins. For example, most initial coin offerings (ICOs) are exclusive clubs, increasingly walled-off by accredited investor regulation and other barriers to entry. IFOs allow those previously shut out to participate by helping to make a market where one didn’t exist.

The exchange has done this with the likes of Polkadot and its DOT project, and more recently with a DFINITY futures contract — anchored by stablecoin Tether. It’s a really interesting take on transparency and lifting the often secretive veil surrounding ICOs. Lamb discusses these and more, delving into the hows and whys of physically delivered bitcoin futures especially in the realm of merchant adoption.

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