(Photo: archives)
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The operator who manages the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the famous New York stock market, is offering investors starting this Sunday to bet on bitcoin, thus bringing the virtual currency a little more recognition.
Operations will begin when electronic trading in the financial markets opens at 8 p.m. in New York.
Brokers will then be able to trade bitcoin futures contracts on one of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) platforms, i.e. bet on a rise or fall in the value of the cryptocurrency, as for oil. or gold.
It is the ICE’s dedicated virtual currencies subsidiary, Bakkt, which is piloting the operation. When it was launched in August 2018, it set itself the goal of starting discussions last November, but the project was delayed.
It is already possible to buy and sell bitcoin directly on a multitude of small platforms that do not have the historical and official legitimacy of the NYSE parent company, Wall Street’s figurehead.
Another large stock exchange operator, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange or CME, has also been offering cryptocurrency futures contracts since the end of 2017. About 7,000 of them have been circulating there daily since the start of the year, representing a total value of over $ 350 million per day, at the current price.
But when the CME’s futures expire, clients receive the dollar equivalent of the value of the bitcoins. The idea is to prevent investors from owning bitcoins themselves.
The products offered by Bakkt are different because brokers will receive bitcoins directly. They can then decide to entrust the custody to Bakkt, in a sort of secure virtual warehouse.
“Our first objective is to provide an ecosystem in which we can have confidence,” had underlined the boss of Bakkt, Kelly Loeffler, just after the final green light from the American authorities in mid-August.
Bakkt hopes to overcome the reluctance of institutional investors, who continue to be wary of this virtual currency with high volatility and a sulphurous reputation.
The company is launching its products in any case before the arrival of Libra, the virtual currency that Facebook has promised for 2020 but which raises many concerns among both central bankers and politicians.
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