New CME Bitcoin Options Stir ”Unusually Strong Activity”

As CME Group prepares for Bitcoin (BTC) options launch scheduled for January 13, JPMorgan the largest bank of the United States anticipates a stir of huge interest among investors.

On January 10 Nikolas Panigirtzoglou, a leader of JPMorgan’s team of strategists, stated that “there has been a step increase in the activity of the underlying CME futures contract” over the past few days.

”High anticipation” of Bitcoin options

Commenting on the investor’s rising interests in Bitcoin, JPMorgan states:

“This unusually strong activity over the past few days likely reflects the high anticipation among market participants of the option contract.”

This reaction is drastically opposite to the reaction seen by Bakkt’s Bitcoin options offering which started last month: the volumes were ”rather small”, as JPMorgan’s team said.

Generally, it took a long time for interest in Bitcoin futures to rise to certain significant point. Bakkt’s own launch in September was similar to CME’s start in December 2017, both seeing a prolonged period of low amounts.

Futures trading started before the Bitcoin price drop, which could mark this week’s options launch.

Factors influencing the market

Though JPMorgan didn’t correlate the activity in futures with the BTC/USD, the Bitcoin price jumped up significantly from $7,300 last weekend to $8,400 (15% gain).

Most commentators believe that such an uptrend in Bitcoin may partially be a result of geopolitical uncertainty centered on Iran.

According to Sonny Singh, chief commercial officer at cryptocurrency payment processor BitPay, even a small influx of new investors into Bitcoin sector was enough to intensify the market movement.

Considering the tensions around Iran and companies such as Fidelity Investments joining the crypto trend, Singh added that he believes that in 2020 Bitcoin will hit its all-time highs of $20,000.



