The North American Derivatives Exchange (Nadex), the largest US binary options exchange, resumed on Monday listing of Bitcoin contracts now that it has the Tera Bitcoin Price Index available. The exchange temporarily suspended such contracts as of 9 February this year due to technical difficulties.

In February, Nadex announced it had contacted the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) with an emergency notice regarding its decision to hold its weekly and daily Bitcoin binary contracts. The reason for this was that the exchange did not have available at the time the underlying Tera Bitcoin Price Index market, upon which the Nadex Bitcoin contracts are based.

The problem was solved after in late May, TeraExchange received a status with the CFTC as a fully-registered Swap Execution Facilities (SEFs), together with GTX SEF Llc., a unit of forex broker giant Gain Capital, and FTSEF. Prior to this, the entities operated under temporary registration status.

In September, the CFTC found TeraExchange guilty of failing to enforce prohibitions oin wash trading and prepared trading in Bitcoin Swap. The entity had offered for trading on its SEF a non-deliverable forward contract based on the relative value of the USD and Bitcoin and had presented them to traders as pre-operational test trades, when in fact it later described them to the public as actual trading in Bitcoin swap. The regulator then required TeraExchenge to cease and desist from future violations relating to its obligations to enforce rules on trade practices.

Nadex is the North American unit of IG Group, an international brokerage house listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). It is regulated by the CFTC and is a leading US exchange for binary options and spreads. Its platform is available in web-based and mobile versions.

TeraExchange launched the first US-regulated trading platform for Bitcoin forward contracts. The Tera Bitcoin Price Index was designed as a global benchmark index for USD/Bitcoin swap contracts. TeraExchange is owned by Tera Group Inc, which provides a multi-asset trading platform for Bitcoin derivatives, interest rate swaps, credit default swaps and non-deliverable forwards.

Source: Nadex