Bakkt Starts Testing its Bitcoin Futures Today

Highly-anticipated and oft-delayed crypto trading platform Bakkt starts testing its bitcoin futures today.

As previously reported, today the user acceptance testing should begin for the bitcoin futures listed and traded at ICE Futures US and cleared at ICE Clear US.

“Testing is proceeding as planned with participants from around the world,” Bakkt confirmed today.

As a reminder, the two futures to enter the testing phase are:

• A daily settlement bitcoin future, which will enable customers to transact in a same-day market.
• A monthly bitcoin futures contract, which will enable trading in the front month and across the forward pricing curve.

“That’s our mission”, Bakkt says, “to support the development of trusted infrastructure for securely transacting in the new market for digital assets.”

They also claim to bring other features expected by institutions “in a versatile and broadly accessible market”, such as block trades, market maker incentive programs to encourage liquid markets, a fee holiday through the end of the year to encourage trading, and integrations with independent software vendors and regulated brokerage platforms.

It’s well known that Bakkt, which is backed by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, is often seen as a big step for traditional investors to take and enter into cryptosphere, which could boost the adoption of Bitcoin and other digital assets.

As previously reported, being valued at around USD 740 million, and having a number of major companies as its investors and partners, such as Boston Consulting Group, CMT Digital, Eagle Seven, Galaxy Digital, Starbucks, Horizons Ventures, and others, Bakkt will need a lot of trading volume to make sure the investors get their returns.

Meanwhile, CMEGroup said recently that CME Bitcoin futures reached a record USD 1.7 billion in notional value traded on June 26, surpassing the previous record by more than 30%.

Moreover, in June, major broker in the global financial markets, TP ICAP, entered cryptoworld by expanding their services and becoming an intermediary between clients who want to trade Bitcoin futures.
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However, while some companies are expanding into Bitcoin futures, the Chicago Board Options Exchange put brakes on these futures in March 2019.

At pixel time (09:27 UTC), bitcoin trades at c. USD 10,511 and is down by 2% in the past 24 hours but it’s up by by 2% in the past week.