Bitcoin Futures: Hong Kong's BitMEX vs. Chicago's $CME & $CBOE

Headline: Exchange giant CME's bitcoin futures get tepid take-up in debut | reuters.com.

Where's the action?

BitMEX (domain: bitmex.com), a Hong Kong-based trading platform specializing in bitcoin futures and reportedly offering investors up to 100 times leverage on their positions, with an initial margin requirement of just 1 percent (Editor's note: this sounds crazy! ), but WATCH OUT:
Tweets by BitMEXdotcom

More info on BitMEX here, here (Google.com SERP) and here (Reddit.com). Caveat Emptor!

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Tech Review | Bitcoin Futures Start Trading On CME Globex Monday

Tech Review (TR 2017-12-16)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1)  Bitcoin Futures Start Trading On CME Globex Monday, 2) Antitrust & Tech, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: China, EU, US Stocks vs Gold, The Swamp, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Bitcoin Futures Start Trading On CME Globex Monday Dec 18

Bitcoin futures surged more than 20% on their Cboe debut this week, forcing a major US derivatives exchange to halt trading twice as Wall Street seeks to ride a wave of interest in the controversial digital currency. A second bitcoin futures market launches Monday (Dec 18) on CME Globex. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Dec 11, 2017.

CME Group Self-Certifies Bitcoin Futures to Launch Dec. 18 | cmegroup.com: "The new contract will be listed on and subject to the rules of CME. It will be available for trading on the CME Globex electronic trading platform, and for submission for clearing via CME ClearPort, effective on Sunday, December 17, 2017 for a trade date of December 18. CME Group's Bitcoin futures will be cash-settled, based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) which serves as a once-a-day reference rate of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin. Since November 2016, CME Group and Crypto Facilities Ltd. have calculated and published the BRR, which aggregates the trade flow of major bitcoin spot exchanges during a calculation window into the U.S. Dollar price of one bitcoin as of 4:00 p.m. London time. The BRR is designed around the IOSCO Principles for Financial Benchmarks. Bitstamp, GDAX, itBit and Kraken are the constituent exchanges that currently contribute the pricing data for calculating the BRR." For more info: cmegroup.com/bitcoinfutures.

CME Globex | cmegroup.com/globex: "CME Globex is the premier electronic trading system providing global connectivity to the broadest array of futures and options across all asset classes. CME Group technology facilitates electronic trading, providing users across the globe with virtually 24-hour access to global markets ..."

CME Group Inc.(Chicago Mercantile Exchange & Chicago Board of Trade) is a U.S. based financial market company operating an options and futures exchange. It owns and operates large derivatives and futures exchanges in Chicago, New York City, and exchange facilities in London, using online trading platforms. It also owns the Dow Jones stock and financial indexes, and CME Clearing Services, which provides settlement and clearing of exchange trades. The exchange-traded derivative contracts include futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, rare and precious metals, weather, and real estate. Corporate headquarters are in Chicago in The Loop.

Get ready: #Bitcoin futures will be available on CME Globex and for block trading starting December 18. #BTChttps://t.co/k5sdH51ezB pic.twitter.com/KUevwfo3sU

— CMEGroup (@CMEGroup) December 11, 2017

But also read:

• Bitcoin: The Big Short Is Coming | SeekingAlpha.com

• EU agrees clampdown on bitcoin platforms to tackle money laundering | reuters.com

• Bitcoin fever exposes crypto-market frailties | reuters.com

• Bitcoin hits new record high as warnings grow louder | reuters.com
• Bitcoin's Growing Price Gap Between Exchanges Creates Potential Headaches For Futures Trading--ZeroHedge.com. 
• Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market--"Because bitcoin is a digital currency and not a security, he says, there’s no prohibition against a trade in which a group agrees to buy enough to push the price up and then cashes out in minutes."--Bloomberg.com
• Bloomberg.com: Novogratz Says Crypto Will Be ‘Biggest Bubble of Our Lifetimes’--"One of the biggest bitcoin bulls on Wall Street says cryptocurrencies are in a massive bubble. He’s still starting a $500 million fund to invest in them."
• Signs Of A Market Top? This Pole Dancing Instructor Is Now A Bitcoin Guru | ZeroHedge.com

2) Antitrust & Tech: 

• Antitrust should be used to break up partisan tech giants like Facebook, Google | TheHill.com: "How much face time will your news story get on Facebook? How many eyes will ogle it on Google? Too often, this is apparently determined not by whether the story is “fake” news or newsworthy, but by whether it’s politically correct. And it’s time to break up the Internet’s left-wing, information-conduit oligopoly." 
• U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal's letter (pdf) to the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division re: Comcast-NBC merger--Senator Blumenthal asked the Trump administration's top antitrust prosecutor, Makan Delrahim, to revisit the deal and to try to keep in place conditions set to expire next year. "Given your responsibilities as head of the Antitrust Division to enforce our nation’s antitrust laws, it is incumbent on you to continue to ensure that Comcast’s acquisition of NBCU does not undermine free and fair competition," Blumenthal wrote. The Connecticut Democrat also asked Delrahim to consider splitting up the two companies if he finds that their merger has dampened competition.
• US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) backs Trump's DOJ over AT&T-Time Warner merger | TheHill.com: "While DOJ’s action on the AT&T-Time Warner merger is a good step, one case alone does not prove that DOJ will be the strong antitrust enforcer that America needs."--Senator Elizabeth Warren.

3) Investing

The Week:  Stocks Hit Records With GOP Set to Unveil Tax Bill: Markets Wrap | Bloomberg.com:  U.S. Dollar (USD) advances with gold and crude, Treasuries steady, S&P 500, Dow Industrials, Nasdaq indexes all reach fresh highs.

Investing Notes:

• IMF identifies financial risks in China | SeekingAlpha.com: China's financial system, the 'shadow banking' sector, and excessive risk-taking.
• European debt investors left vulnerable to interest rate shock | ft.com: Average maturity of new bonds sold in eurozone climbs to highest level in a decade. See also Euro zone governments eye more 50-year-plus bond sales in 2018--reuters.com.
• U.S. stocks overpriced? DataTrekResearch.com: At the current 2.1x ratio, US stocks are no more expensive versus gold than they were at the beginning of 1997. The real “Mania” started then, and even if you bought stocks in January of that year you were still in the money at the end of 2002 once the bubble burst.
• The Swamp: Census Bureau: 5 Richest Counties Are D.C. Suburbs | cnsnews.com.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Why Amazon Is Google's Greatest Threat | SeekingAlpha.com.

• China's Top Phone Makers Poised to Challenge Apple on Home Turf | Bloomberg.com: "Huawei, Xiaomi in talks with carriers to expand to U.S. market - Apple has lost significant China marketshare to local makers"
• FCC overturns net neutrality rules, supporters plan to continue fight | USAtoday.com

• Tech Hub London: London's Housing Market Is Still a Money Machine--Bloomberg.com.
• Cord Cutters--ZeroHedge.com: New Study Says 40% Of American Households Will 'Cut The Cord' By 2030. 
• Is Alibaba [$BABA] Eating JD.com's (NASDAQ:JD) Lunch? | SeekingAlpha.com
• Alibaba to buy 30% of India's online grocer BigBasket for $300M, with $80M of the investment used to buy shares from existing shareholders--indiatimes.com.
• Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) (domain: baidu.com) has a dominant position in China's search market with a 76% share of online search and an 82.5% share of China's mobile search market. China is the largest online market in the world with roughly 730 million users, a penetration rate of only 52%, and an annual ad spending growth rate of 32%--SeekingAlpha.com.

• Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society | TheVerge/com: "No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth .... an incident in India where hoax messages about kidnappings shared on WhatsApp led to the lynching of seven innocent people ..."
• Disney's Fox deal a seismic shift in media landscape | reuters.com
• India raises import tax on cellphones, move to hurt Apple | reuters.com

• Life is Short | paulgraham.com: "As I've written before, one byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become more addictive. Which means we will increasingly have to make a conscious effort to avoid addictions—to stand outside ourselves and ask "is this how I want to be spending my time?" As well as avoiding bullshit one should actively seek out things that matter ... But most people start out with a life that's a mix of things that matter and things that don't, and only gradually learn to distinguish between them."

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Bitcoin Futures $XBT Start Trading Sunday, 6pm ET, on Cboe's CFE (video)

All About Bitcoin Trades

$XBT Debut--bitcoin futures begin trading, Sunday, December 10, 2017, 5pm CT (6pm ET) in Chicago on the Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE)--Cboe Global Markets (cboe.com) video above published Dec 8, 2017. See also: Cboe Launches Bitcoin Futures Trading in Chicago On Sunday (video) | DomainMondo.com.

After bitcoin’s wild week, traders brace for futures launch on Sunday--reuters.com--interactive graphic on bitcoin's blistering ascent click here.

UPDATE Dec 11, 2017, via @nntaleb:

Bitcoin: my answer to the repeated questions.
No, there is NO way to properly short the bitcoin "bubble". Any strategy that doesn't entail options is nonergodic (subjected to blowup). Just as one couldn't rule out 5K, then 10K, one can't rule out 100K.
Gabish?

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) December 9, 2017

Very big point. Futures that don't have deliverables require a very, very deep market. Otherwise someone long the future can push prices higher at settlement time with impunity, by "locking" profits (never having to resell a deliverable). https://t.co/k1EbT2I7nv

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) December 10, 2017

Shorting a future creates an unbounded liability: you are responsible for all your personal assets.
Unlike futures, options have natural sellers: covered calls (hence spreadable into synthetic puts), & they should have been introduced AT THE SAME TIME as the future.

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) December 11, 2017

Bitcoin Futures Are On The Way: Here's What To Expect | CNBC.com

CNBC.com video above published Dec 8, 2017: CNBC's Bob Pisani explains what bitcoin futures market means for trading, regulation, liquidity, price and volatility.

Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE®) (domain: cfe.cboe.com) is the "home of volatility futures, featuring futures on the Cboe® Volatility Index (VIX®). CFE is owned by Cboe Global Markets and trades on CFE are cleared by The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC). CFE is an all-electronic, open access market model with dedicated market makers and market participants providing liquidity." See also XBT-Planned Cboe Bitcoin Futures | cfe.cboe.com and Bitcoin | Cboe Blogs | Cboe.com.

XBT-Planned Cboe Bitcoin Futures | cfe.cboe.com: "Why Trade XBT Futures - Settle to a Single Auction Price - XBT futures is a cash-settled contract that settles to a single, tradeable auction price. In designing XBT futures, Cboe leveraged its significant product development expertise to design an instrument that allows participants to implement trading strategies in a manner to which they are accustomed. The single price settlement process gives participants the option of using XBT futures to hedge their exposure in underlying bitcoin or gain exposure to traded bitcoin prices without holding bitcoin. How Can I Trade XBT Futures on Cboe Futures Exchange? Bitcoin futures based on the Gemini auction prices will be traded exclusively at Cboe Futures Exchange. Contact your brokerage firm to find out how to trade XBT futures at Cboe Futures Exchange."

See also:

• BITCOIN PRICE (BTC in USD) | BusinessInsider.com and https://www.coindesk.com/price/

• With bitcoin futures set to trade, here's how it's going to work | cnbc.com

• Bitcoin's Futures Are All Mapped Out | Bloomberg.com
• "The launch of liquid futures exchanges increases the likelihood of a bitcoin ETF being approved by the SEC in the near future. That would bring a lot of money into an already crowded space."--CoinDesk.com

• Interactive Brokers chairman warns about dangers of bitcoin futures | BusinessInsider.com

• Petterfy: Bitcoin Futures Could Trigger Lehman-Style Crisis | Fortune.com

• Bill Blain: Bitcoin Futures Could Be "A Clusterf*ck Of Monumental Proportions" | ZeroHedge.com

• Crypto Chaos - Bitcoin Price Swings Signal Futures Fiasco Ahead Of Launch | ZeroHedge.com

• Bitcoin: What The Heck Is Going On? | Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust ETF (Pending:COIN) | SeekingAlpha.com

• Crypto-Cornucopia Part 5 - "We'll Be Lucky To Survive On Our Own" | ZeroHedge.com

"Those who plan to use bitcoin futures to speculate on the digital currency should risk only what they'd be comfortable taking to Las Vegas. Most importantly, avoid taking positions so large that the value of your bitcoin futures exceeds the value of your brokerage account equity. Leveraged future trades are one of the very few ways you can lose all of your account balance, and more, if markets move against you."--Cboe Bitcoin Futures: 5 Things You Should Know About XBT | fool.com

"The futures market for gold is almost 10x the size (measuring the underlying asset of the contracts) of the physical gold market ... [like gold futures] both the CME and the CBOE bitcoin futures settle in cash, not in actual bitcoin ... So, it’s likely that the bitcoin futures market will end up being even larger than the actual bitcoin market .... I’m concerned that institutional investors that would have purchased bitcoin for its potential gains will now just head to the futures market. Cleaner, cheaper, safer and more regulated. What worries me even more is the possibility that the institutional funds that have already bought bitcoin (and pushed the price up to current levels) will decide that the official futures market is safer. And they will sell ..."--The Threat of Bitcoin Futures | CoinDesk.com.

@CBOE

Due to heavy traffic on our website, visitors to https://t.co/jb3O722hoo may find that it is performing slower than usual and may at times be temporarily unavailable. All trading systems are operating normally.

— Cboe (@CBOE) December 10, 2017

You can find the delayed futures quotes starting Sunday night at https://t.co/whWsSwa2Pn #Bitcoin $XBT @Cboe pic.twitter.com/sRfKGqF8u4

— Russell Rhoads (@RussellRhoads) December 9, 2017

Bitcoin Futures launch this Sunday, $INTC heavy volume in upside callshttps://t.co/aRZjnHpXPH @jonnajarian

— Cboe (@CBOE) December 8, 2017

$XBT
Tweets about $XBT

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Cboe Launches Bitcoin Futures Trading in Chicago On Sunday (video)

Cboe CEO Edward Tilly On Launch Of Bitcoin Futures Trading

CNBC.com video above published Dec 5, 2017: CNBC's Bob Pisani discusses with Edward Tilly, Cboe CEO, the first bitcoin futures market opening at the Cboe.

Trading will begin at 5pm CST in Chicago (11pm GMT) on Sunday, December 10, with Monday representing the first full trading day. Cboe said trading will be free through December — a move likely aimed at drumming up interest ahead of the launch of bitcoin futures on December 18 by rival CME Group.

UPDATE Dec 10: Bitcoin Futures $XBT Start Trading Sunday, 6pm ET, on Cboe's CFE (video).

On Friday, December 1, Cboe announced that CFE had filed a product certification with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to offer bitcoin futures trading. More information on XBT futures is available at www.cboe.com/xbt. Over the last five years, the total value of all bitcoin outstanding (i.e., “market capitalization”) has grown from less than $1 billion to over $183 billion with daily notional turnover over $10 billion. The total value of all cryptocurrency tokens outstanding is now approximately $332 billion.

A Look at Cboe Bitcoin (USD) Contract Specs | cboe.com: "... Trading hours run from Sunday night at 5:00 pm to Friday afternoon at 3:15 pm.  Specifically, the extended trading hours (ETH) session starts Sunday at 5:00 pm and ends Monday at 8:30 am with the ETH sessions for the rest of the week (Tuesday – Friday) consisting of opening at 3:30 pm the day before and ending at 8:30 am.  Regular trading hours are Monday – Friday from 8:30 am to 3:15 pm, just like the VIX futures.  All these time periods are Chicago time ..." (read more at link above)

Cboe Global Markets Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOE) (domain: cboe.com) trading venues include the largest options exchange in the U.S. and the largest stock exchange by value traded in Europe. In addition, the company is the second-largest stock exchange operator in the U.S. and a leading market globally for ETP trading. The company is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Kansas City, New York, London, San Francisco, Singapore, Hong Kong and Quito, Ecuador. More info: Cboe | Cboe Options Exchange | cboe.com and the Cboe press release (pdf).

Tyler Winklevoss, Chief Executive Officer of Gemini, said: “Developing a regulated derivatives market is the next logical and crucial step towards advancing the broader digital asset market. We have been working for years to build infrastructure to grow the digital asset market and today’s news marks a significant milestone.” Gemini – The Next Generation Digital Asset Exchange | gemini.com.

Cboe Futures Exchange plans to offer trading in bitcoin futures beginning at 5 p.m. CT on Dec. 10 at the start of Global Trading Hours. See the press release, https://t.co/dNPUXcZgzv #bitcoin $XBT pic.twitter.com/ciexv3OVoI

— Cboe (@CBOE) December 4, 2017

Coinbase VP Says Bitcoin Volatility Will Be Short-Lived

Bloomberg.com video above published Nov 28, 2017: Adam White, Coinbase Inc. vice president, discusses the surge in bitcoin with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology."

Caveat Emptor: According To Alan Greenspan, Bitcoin Is 'Not A Rational Currency' | CNBC.com | YouTube.com: "Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan compares bitcoin to gambling in Las Vegas."  See also: Bitcoin to start futures trading, stoking Wild West worries | reuters.com.

How Citron's Andrew Left Is Playing Bitcoin

Bloomberg.com video above published Dec 5, 2017: Andrew Left, Citron Research (domain: citronresearch.com) founder, discusses the outlook for bitcoin with Bloomberg’s Julia Chatterley on "Bloomberg Markets."

Supply inelasticity explains in part why bitcoin is so volatile, writes Erik Norland: https://t.co/WcztVd1p5h pic.twitter.com/n7OIMk5TAO

— CMEGroup (@CMEGroup) December 4, 2017

Final caveat: Open letter to CFTC Chairman Giancarlo re: listing of cryptocurrency derivatives (embed below):

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