No more Bitcoin futures on CBOE, crypto market doesn’t care

• The exchange won’t list new contracts in March.
• The market shows no reaction whatsoever.

Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) announced that they wouldn’t launch new Bitcoin futures this month. According to the statement, the company needs to review its approach to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.  

“CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading. While it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading,” – the company explained.

Meanwhile, the existing Bitcoin futures will remain available for trading, which means that the most recent contract XBTM19 will expire in June 2019.

The decision may be prompted by low trading volumes. According to the research conducted by TradeBlock at the beginning of February, investor interest towards Bitcoin futures on CME and Cboe is fading away.

It is worth noting that these US-based platforms offer cash-settled futures, which means that upon the contract’s expiration, one party pays the other the difference between the spot and futures prices in USD.

This news failed to trigger any meaningful reaction on the cryptocurrency markets as all significant coins including Bitcoin continued trading in narrow ranges. Obviously, at this stage, the market is dominated by technical and speculative factors.