CME Group Declares the Launch Date for Bitcoin Options

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group has declared the time it anticipates to inaugurate the Bitcoin futures options in an announcement on November 12.

In response to growing interest in cryptocurrencies and customer demand for tools to manage bitcoin exposure, CME Group will launch options on Bitcoin futures (BTC) on January 13, 2020,

the company disclosed in the statement. The CME Group said that the forthcoming products are yet to attain regulatory permission.

CME Group stipulated that one of the Bitcoin futures contracts is to denote the quote of 5 BTC in the United States dollars, with at least a 5 contracts block.

The announcement goes like

Option exercise results in a position in the underlying cash-settled futures contract. In-the-money options are automatically exercised into expiring cash-settled futures, which settle to the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) at 4:00 p.m. London time on the last Friday of the contract month.

Earlier in September, the Group indicated plans to launch options around BTC futures latest in Q1 of 2020.

During this time, the head of equity index and product investments, Tim McCourt spoke that the fresh commodities are aimed at helping institutions as well as the professional merchants to handle the BTC exposure of the spot market and equip them to teeter BTC futures stances through a controlled setting in the exchange.

The company in October said that it anticipates a high appetite for its BTC options products coming up in Asia. McCourt said that alternatives would probably empower miners of Bitcoin to appropriately hedge the expenses of the production.

McCourt also asserted during this time that Group has no existing strategies to roll out physically-settled contracts of Bitcoin.