Earlier today, on November 2, the bitcoin price achieved a new all-time high at $7,150, entering the $7,000 region for the first time in history.
In the past three days, the market has shown absolute confidence in the mid-term trend and performance of bitcoin, given the announcement of CME, the largest options exchange in the world, to launch a bitcoin futures exchange by the end of 2017, and the increased probability of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving a bitcoin ETF by mid-2018.
Importance of Bitcoin Futures and ETFs
Trillions of dollars are currently being stored in offshore banking accounts and wealth management products (WMPs). But, institutional investors, retail and high profile traders cannot directly invest in bitcoin due to regulatory frameworks established by US financial authorities.
Bitcoin options, derivatives, and futures exchanges will allow investors to allocate “money on the sidelines” to bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market, through strictly regulated channels such as LedgerX and CME’s futures exchange.
Already, the team behind LedgerX revealed that it had processed more than $1 million worth of bitcoin derivatives and futures trades in the first week of its operation, during a period in which the company was not expecting to process minimal volumes of trades to test the system and the exchange.
It is entirely possible that hundreds of billions of dollars could become allocated into bitcoin in the mid-term, at least in the upcoming years, which could allow bitcoin to evolve into a trillion dollar market cap. Evidently, the market has been confident in the mid-term trend of bitcoin, as the bitcoin price surpassed the $7,100 mark this week.
Terry Duffy, CME Group Chairman and CEO, stated that the institution has seen drastic surge in the demand for bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market, and decided to offer a futures exchange to address that demand. Duffy said>
“Given increasing client interest in the evolving cryptocurrency markets, we have decided to introduce a bitcoin futures contract. As the world’s largest regulated FX marketplace, CME Group is the natural home for this new vehicle that will provide investors with transparency, price discovery and risk transfer capabilities.”
More to that, CBOE, one of the largest options exchange in the US alongside CME, also announced that it had secured a partnership with leading US-based cryptocurrency exchange Gemini to launch bitcoin derivatives in the near future.
WIth LedgerX, CME, and CBOE futures exchanges operating the next few months, bitcoin ETFs will likely be approved by the US SEC and lead the bitcoin price to the interim target of prominent analysts like Max Keiser, who have predicted the price of bitcoin to reach $10,000 in the short-term.
Is $10,000 Within 2017 Possible?
As did Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, the SegWit2x hard fork on November 16 will likely cause the bitcoin price to endure a minor correction, specifically a few days before and after the fork. But, there are also minor factors that could contribute to the bitcoin price achieving the $10,000 target. Rumors around the Chinese government’s possibility of resuming cryptocurrency trading has resurfaced, and South Korea’s bitcoin market has been growing exponentially in the past month.