In a first for the futures contract space, Coinfloor is launching the world’s first physically delivered Bitcoin futures in April.
Called CoinfloorEX, the new trading platform is hoped to attract hedge funds, proprietary trading firms and sophisticated retail investors. It could even be attractive to miners, officials contend.
The CEO of Coinfloor, Obi Nwosu, said several market participants have called on existing cryptocurrency exchanges that provide futures contracts to switch from cash to physical settlements.
He said Coinfloor has worked for more than two years to make this happen. Furthermore, the new trading platform will allow market players to capitalize on market dynamics based on their own risk parameters and in line with their individual trading strategies, he said.
Mark Lamb, co-founder of Coinfloor, spoke about liquidity providers benefiting from CoinfloorEX at the Futures Industry Association’s annual conference in Boca Raton, Fla.
“When you talk to the liquidity providers, they all say the same thing, which is they want a physically delivered futures contract so they can hedge their exposure across exchanges.”
CoinfloorEX is modeled after the futures exchanges of CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) and CBOE Global Markets. As you may recall, they launched the first futures contracts in December. The main difference between the U.S. futures exchanges and CoinfloorEX is the physical delivery aspect.
Coinfloor recognized the challenges of buying, selling and trading bitcoins in the U.K. and started its business in 2012. Launching CoinfloorEX is another move that could help it solve these problems. Coinfloor is the UK’s No. 1 Bitcoin exchange.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
