NASDAQ Still Interested In Bitcoin Futures Launch By The Beginning Of 2019, Despite Ongoing Price Drop

It should come as no shock, at this point, that Bitcoin has been dropping for quite a while. There’s plenty of factors that contribute to why this is happening, and there are many different reactions to it in the crypto community. Many investors are finding this to be a good time to leave a sinking ship, while long term investors know that this is just part of the pattern. Since institutional investors could play a significant role in the reboot of the Bitcoin price, NASDAQ has decided to continue pursuing their Bitcoin futures launch as soon as the first quarter next year.

Bloomberg reported on NASDAQ’s intention to still enter the market, citing “two people familiar with the matter.” Bitcoin is reaching its lowest lows in over a year, presently at $3,700 after a 2.16% loss in the last 24 hours. Still, the sources say that NASDAQ “has been working to satisfy the concerns of the U.S.’s main swaps regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC], before launching the contracts.”

The stock exchange first introduced the idea of launching futures by the middle of this year, which was not long after CBOE and CME Group established their own launch date. Since their plan did not come to fruition, it’s likely that NASDAQ will take a little longer than their other traditional finance competitors.

CEO Kelly Loeffler noted,

“As is often true with product launches, there are new processes, risks and mitigants to test and re-test, and in the case of crypto, a new asset class to which these resources are being applied.”

The enthusiasm from NASDAQ is a good sign that the performance of Bitcoin has not deterred Wall Street from being involved in the crypto market. According to the Bloomberg sources, NASDAQ is “betting on sustained interest” from this point on.

In February, the cryptocurrency community saw the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) created stricter regulations for the review process involving crypto futures products. The point of this change is to make it easier for regulators to know how to handle new futures products on the market.

The Intercontinental Exchange already decided to launch a physical bitcoin futures product, using a new exchange they created called Bakkt. While they were supposed to launch in December 2018, it has been delayed to January 2019.

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