An unconfirmed report released today, November 27, 2018, claims that NASDAQ has plans to launch BTC-based futures contracts, and that these plans are continuing to go forward despite the recent crypto crash.Bloomberg published an article today describing NASDAQ’s history with these futures contracts, claiming that they have “been working to satisfy the concerns of the U.S.’s main swaps regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, before launching the contracts.”NASDAQ has allegedly been laying the groundwork for these new futures contracts for some time and is now “betting on sustained interest despite the cryptocurrency’s dramatic plunge over the past year.” Bloomberg included quotes from a source within NASDAQ from earlier this January, showing the long-term nature of these planned futures contracts. “The exchange was weighing how to distinguish its plans from contracts already offered by competitors,” said CEO Adena Friedman, with Bloomberg now claiming that “The Nasdaq futures will be based off the Bitcoin’s price on numerous spot exchanges, as compiled by VanEck Associates Corp.”With a long-term interest both in cryptocurrency and in these specific bitcoin-based futures contracts, it would make sense that NASDAQ is continuing to give the futures contracts the green light. The space has always been a particularly volatile one, but the 80 percent crash in the value of bitcoin over the course ...
