The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on June 25, 2019, approved LedgerX LLC’s application seeking to establish itself as a designated contract market that would offer retail investors spot and physically-settled derivatives contracts that pay out in bitcoin (BTC).
Bitcoin Paying Derivatives to Debut in July
The U.S.-based regulated Bitcoin derivatives exchange and clearinghouse, LedgerX has earned the approval from the U.S. CFTC to offer retail investors Bitcoin paying derivatives contracts, including options and futures.
Per sources close to the matter, the newly approved BTC derivatives contracts could make their market debut as soon as July 2019.
Speaking to Bloomberg, LedgerX CEO, Paul Chou, said that retail investors living in the U.S. and Singapore would soon be able to trade the exchange’s latest market offering. The development is seen as a welcome step toward fostering crypto adoption among retail investors who, according to Chou, “will represent the majority of the market” in the future.
Until now, LedgerX has catered mainly to institutional investors with at least $10 million in assets who are willing to expose their portfolios to notoriously volatile digital assets.
Reportedly, investors would initially be required to deposit a minimum of $10,000 in fiat or bitcoin to trade in physically settled Bitcoin derivatives contracts. This benchmark, however, would eventually go down to zero within a year.
Commenting on the approval from CFTC, Chou said:
“The license will allow retail to directly invest, and they will represent the majority of the market. Retail investors are the ones that drove Bitcoin to this level.”
Chou believes that other cryptocurrency exchanges are roughly six months behind LedgerX in obtaining regulators’ approval for launching various kind of Bitcoin-related financial instruments.
“We are way, way ahead of those test efforts,” he declared.
Increased Retail Participation
Bitcoin has again started knocking on the doors of mainstream media newsrooms, thanks to its recent surge which could be attributed to several factors across the globe.
Amid the seemingly positive market sentiment, many erstwhile institutional grade funds are steadily warming up to facilitate greater participation from small-scale investors in the crypto economy.
As previously reported by BTCManager on May 23, 2019, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) had approved Grayscale Ethereum Trust for retail investors.
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