You Can Trade Bitcoin Futures. But Should You?

Trading in bitcoin futures opens today on Cboe Global Markets Inc. Its rival, CME Group Inc., will soon follow suit. It’s a milestone in the acceptance of the digital currency by the world of mainstream investing, spurred in part by bitcoin’s meteoric rise this year. Skeptics still abound, however, including executives at some of the world’s largest banks. For the doubters, at least there’s this silver lining: Futures trading may add an opportunity to burst what they see as a bubble.

Sonny Singh, BitPay’s chief commercial officer looks ahead to the Cboe’s introduction of bitcoin futures contracts.(Source: Bloomberg)

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By Annie Massa

December 10, 2017 at 7:00 PM UTC

Updated on

December 11, 2017 at 1:46 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Trading in bitcoin futures opened today on Cboe Global Markets Inc. Its rival, CME Group Inc., will soon follow suit. It’s a milestone in the acceptance of the digital currency by the world of mainstream investing, spurred in part by bitcoin’s meteoric rise this year. Skeptics still abound, however, including executives at some of the world’s largest banks. For the doubters, at least there’s this silver lining: Futures trading may add an opportunity to burst what they see as a bubble.

On a network of unregulated exchanges, which have their own prices for the digital currency -- and a long history of problems that range from service crashes to hacks and thefts. Buying and holding bitcoin is essentially a bet that its value will rise further. Not everybody who wants to get involved in this market thinks so.