On the evening of February 8, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange introduced Ethereum futures trading. Current price data for the tool is presented by crypto exchanges Bitstamp, Gemini, itBit, Kraken, and Coinbase. Just before the initiation of trading, quotations of the biggest altcoin by market cap fell to $1490, after which they started growing.
The new asset is traded under the ticker ETH. Enterprises providing liquidity for the newly created futures include BlockFi, Genesis, Galaxy, CoinShares, and others. One contract is equal to roughly 50 ETH (about $81,000).
The CME declared the introduction of the contract back in December. The company named the growing necessity for crypto derivatives as the main justification for the launch of the new tool. JPMorgan analysts then cautioned that this could lead to a downbeat Ethereum price action.
Before that, futures for a cryptocurrency – Bitcoin – first emerged on the CME in December 2017, a day after the price of Bitcoin first touched $20,000. Then BTC entered a phase of long-term deterioration.
On February 5, Ethereum established another all-time high-level of $1,760. Since the start of the current year, the cost of the cryptocurrency has increased by almost 139%.
