Nasdaq-Based Bitcoin Product Appears On TD Ameritrade
According to Cryptopolis, a quantitative analyst at StrongMarket, a Bitcoin (BTC) product appeared on his TD Ameritrade account on Monday morning. As seen below, the product trades under “CXERX” and is purportedly listed on the Nasdaq. Per the chart seen below, the BTC/USD pair of the product began trading on April 10th, 2019, just two weeks ago.
Cryptopolis claims to have purchased one BTC at a price of $5,335. This, if true, would be colossal news, as this new vehicle could entice a new wave of retail and institutional investors to enter the cryptocurrency space, as Bitcoin leaves the bear market in the dust.
But from Ethereum World News’ preliminary search, no real BTC product under the aforementioned ticker is actually live on Nasdaq. So, what exactly is CXERX?
Well, according to a follow-up tweet from Cryptopolis, it may not be anything… yet. TD Ameritrade’s support staff told him that his trade wasn’t real, and they weren’t even too sure what CXERX is. The staffer, going by “Sean B,” explained that CXERX “is not a symbol we trade on the live side,” and that more likely than not, the asset is being tested on the paper trading side, meaning no transactions actually occur. That begs yet another question: What could CXERX be if/when it goes live?
Well, as Ameritrade’s system registered it as being listed Nasdaq, it could very well be an early iteration of the exchange’s rumored cryptocurrency futures that glitched onto consumer platforms.
For those who missed the memo, late last year, the world-renowned financial market revealed that it had begun work on an in-house Bitcoin futures contract.
Gabor Gurbacs, a digital asset strategist/head at VanEck (the firm behind the leading Bitcoin ETF proposal), explained that his firm and Nasdaq to “bring a regulated crypto 2.0 futures-type contract” to market.
And while Gurbacs didn’t mention an explicit date, a representative of the firm did. Per previous reports, Joseph Christinat, Vice President of Nasdaq media relations, told an English publication that his firm should launch such products “in the first half of next year (2019),” adding that approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is what is slowing the process. He then asserted that Nasdaq is serious in launching crypto asset futures trading, remarking that “we’re doing this, and it’s happening.”
This all sounds like good news, but the CFTC is rumored to be stalling on crypto-related products. A Bloomberg report released last week, which cited those familiar with the matter, claimed that the financial regulator is taking issue with how Bakkt’s futures product is custodying Bitcoin. Although Nasdaq has not tipped its hand as to whether its product will be physically-secured or not, the CFTC seems to be taking its time with this industry for one reason or another.
Photo by Roberto Júnior on Unsplash
