CBOE Global Markets president Chris Concannon said that Ethereum (ETH) futures, which the company has been “considering” since December 2017, could soon be offered, Bloomberg reported Thursday, June 14.
Concannon’s comment follows the news that a senior U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official stated that leading altcoin Ethereum will not be regulated as a security.
CBOE’s president said that the SEC’s stance could mean that the US regulator would allow the options exchange to add Ether futures to their portfolio:
“We are pleased with the SEC’s decision to provide clarity with respect to current Ether transactions. This announcement clears a key stumbling block for Ether futures, the case for which we’ve been considering since we launched the first Bitcoin futures in December 2017.”
CBOE’s December launch of Bitcoin (BTC) futures sparked a large rally for the cryptocurrency — whose price at the time on Dec. 10 rose from around $15,000 to around $16,800 — bringing so much trading volume to the site that it temporarily went down. The first futures contract expired on Jan. 17 at a price of around $10,900, making it a win for bears.
Bitcoin futures were in the news this week for other reasons, as Fundstrat’s Tom Lee pointed to their contract expiration as a possible reason for Bitcoin’s recently sinking price. Bitcoin is currently trading for around $6,541, down a little more than 1 percent over a 24 hour period to press time.