Bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) futures launched Sunday night on the Chicago-based CME Group's exchange venue, Business Insider reported.
The futures contract that expires in January opened higher at $20,650, then declined steadily. The futures were trading at $18,895 at 10:30 p.m. EST.
CME’s new market for Bitcoin futures is expected to add more liquidity to the market after last Sunday's launch of future’s trading on CBOE.
“This market should see way bigger volumes. CME is a way bigger player in futures than Cboe,” John Spallanzani, chief macro strategist at CFI Group, told Business Insider.
Once CME futures trading commenced, the value of spot Bitcoin on the composite index provided by cryptocurrency watcher CoinDesk was initially little-changed at a value of around $19,260. Since then, prices have declined.
The CME futures, like the ones that CME competitor the Cboe started trading last week, do not involve actual bitcoin. The CME’s futures will track an index of Bitcoin prices pulled from several private exchanges.
The Cboe’s futures track the price of Bitcoin prices on the particular private exchange known as Gemini.