ICE’s Bakkt Announces Bitcoin Options For Its Futures Contracts, Launch In December 2019
ICE’s Bakkt platform made an important announcement on Thursday, October 24, about the launch of its regulated Bitcoin Options for its recently launched Bitcoin futures contracts.
Exactly a month back, Bakkt platform launched its Bitcoin Futures contracts in the open markets. Bakkt said that its Bitcoin Option is designed based on customer feedback thereby giving institutional investors better exposure to Bitcoin.
In the blog post, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler stated that the platform is committed to bringing trust and utility to digital assets and the options contracts is one such product in the regulated markets.
Loeffler stated: “The Bakkt Bitcoin Options contract will be based on the benchmark Bakkt Monthly Bitcoin Futures contract and represents another important step in developing this asset class for institutional investors, their customers and investors”.
She further added: “ICE Futures U.S. has self-certified the contract with the CFTC and we’re excited to leverage the benchmark futures prices and institutional grade custody to meet the needs for a regulated options contract”.
Bakkt is set to launch its Bitcoin options contract on December 9, 2019. For the first month, Bakkt will offer a complete fee waiver for trading its options. However, January 2020 onwards, it will charge a fee of $1.25 per options contract traded.
After a slow start to its Bitcoin Futures, Bakkt has recently picked up the market response. On Wednesday 23, Bakkt recorded its all-time high record of 590 contracts of Bakkt Bitcoin Monthly Futures changing hands.
The platform is now hitting new milestones for both - daily and monthly futures contract offering. With the latest announcement of options contract, especially in short time since the launch of Bakkt Bitcoin futures, the platform has stumped its competitor CME Group which is also working on a similar options offering.
The CME Group has confirmed that it will launch its Bitcoin options contracts in the Q1 2020. Thus, with more derivatives offering around Bitcoin, institutional participation is likely to shoot up.