The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) recently went on to publicly announce that it will not seek to add a new Bitcoin futures market this month. This is reportedly being done in order to re-evaluate the CBOE’s approach to how it trades digital assets – but that has not stopped cryptocurrency short sellers from gloating over the news.



The CBOE’s currently listed futures will continue to be traded



This news came by way of an official statement from the CBOE on March 14th. In it, the exchange detailed that it is waiting with adding a CBOE Bitcoin futures trading contract, while considering how it should proceed.



The official announcement reads as follows:



”CFE [CBOE Futures Exchange] is not adding a Cboe Bitcoin (USD) (“XBT”) futures contract for trading in March 2019. CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading. While it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading. Currently listed XBT futures contracts remain available for trading.”



With this being said, however, the exchange’s currently listed futures will continue to trade. These futures, labeled XBTM19, are set to expire in June of this year – meaning that the CBOE has got plenty of time to add a new CBOE Bitcoin futures contract before that.



The CBOE made substantial waves back in December of 2017, as it launched Bitcoin futures trading. This was closely followed by the CBOE’s arguably closest competitor, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).



Cryptocurrency short seller pokes fun at the decision



This comes just days after a Bloomberg report indicating that the Bitcoin price could potentially soon be adversely affected by a large selloff. All of this has rustled some cryptocurrency bears, most notably Mark Dow.



Mark Dow is a former IMF economist, who is most well-known in cryptocurrency circles for shorting the Bitcoin price at its peak levels around $20,000.



However, Dow has now exited his short position, and jokingly suggested on Twitter that this had led the CBOE to re-evaluate its digital asset strategy. ”I guess this is what happened when I stopped trading it,” Dow tweeted. ”Thanks for the memories! $XBT R.I.P.”



Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is not entirely certain that this means that Bitcoin futures will disappear from the CBOE. Rather, it is entirely possible that the CBOE is simply examining its strategy for handling and trading digital assets.



However, time will surely tell – especially with June approaching, when the currently listed futures will expire from the CBOE.



