Bakkt Launches Bitcoin Options and Cash-Settled Futures

As Bakkt has announced in its blog post, Bitcoin monthly options and cash-settled futures are now available.

The recent post provides more details on these new offerings.

Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) monthly options are based on the benchmark Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) Monthly Futures contract. It is the first CFTC regulated product of this kind. These options will offer new opportunities for trading and earning for traders from all over the world.

Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) cash-settled futures are now available, as expected, on ICE Futures Singapore. This product is aimed at though market players who do not have a possibility or desire to deal with contracts that are physically delivered. The settlement price of the benchmark Bakkt BTC Monthly Futures is to be leveraged for these contracts.

Speaking about them, Bakkt COO Adam White noted:

“At Bakkt, our mission is to bring trust and utility to digital assets. These new contracts represent an important milestone in the development of this emerging asset class and our bitcoin product complex.”

Let us remind you that last month, ICE shared that it was planning to expand Bakkt’s offerings from the physically-settled contacts it has, to cash-settled futures before 2020. However, this news wasn’t met as Bakkt expected to.

Since cash-settled Bitcoin futures don’t transact Bitcoins or hold Bitcoin in custody, people got pretty skeptic regarding this deal. Still, with its CEO Kelly Loeffler recently became newly announced Senator-designate for the U.S. state of Georgia, many investors have returned to an optimistic perspective in terms of Bakkt’s future.

In September this year, Bakkt’s physically delivered Bitcoin futures contracts started with its work following several delays because of regulatory obstacles. However, since the company became active, it is trying to cross the bridge between digital assets and institutional, more traditional investors.

But some members of the cryptocurrency community still believe that digital assets could react negatively on cash-settled Bitcoin futures markets – with the price fall. Just for a reminder, the biggest Bitcoin crash ever began around the same time as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the largest futures exchange in the world, launched a Bitcoin futures product on December 18th, 2017. But is it because of the price bubble or is it really because of this CME’s move – we can’t really say. Because, after that happened, Bitcoin rose to its all-time high of nearly $20,000. Once it reached that point however, it fell drastically and never went back. Still, because Bitcoin futures trading maintained popularity, we cannot say CME was the main (or only) reason. The proof of that happened on April 5, 2019, when CME announced an all-time high in Bitcoin futures trading, recording 22,500 contracts totaling 112,700 Bitcoins in only one day.

Be it as it may, the fact is that, as we previously mentioned, cash-settled Bitcoin futures don’t ever actually transact physical Bitcoins. Bakkt, on the other hand, possesses the first futures contract fully backed by Bitcoin. The physically-settled product is equipped with Bitcoin in cold storage, held in Bakkt’s own insured warehouse.

And let’s get back to Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler who has recently been appointed to a U.S. Senate seat. Loeffler was chosen by Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp and will replace Sen. Johny Isakson, who is set to retire at the end of 2019 due to health concerns.

Maybe it’s also good to know that Loeffler is happily married as well. To Jeffrey C. Sprecher, CEO of ICE and chairman of the NYSE.

This appointment shut most of the skeptics, hesitators, and those disappointed in Bakkt’s announcement of cash-settled Bitcoin futures. However, let’s not swag ourselves in the cozy wave of optimism yet. Even though there are high hopes that Loeffler will not insist on accusing digital assets of all the sins after she gains a senate seat and that she could become the most active advocate of electronic peer to peer cash that is in use among millions worldwide, there are doubts as well. When introducing herself to the Senate, Loeffler said she is “pro-Trump,” pro-border wall on the Mexican border, the Second Amendment advocate and, of course, against abortion and socialism. Nevertheless, she somehow forgot to address crypto or Bitcoin in her introductory comments.