German stock exchange operator Deutsche Boerse is “deep at work” on evaluating whether to offer bitcoin futures and other cryptocurrency-related products, one of the firm’s top executives said on Wednesday.
Speaking at an industry even in London sponsored by the Association for Financial Markets, Deutsche Boerse head of clients Jeffrey Tessler said that the firm is holding serious discussions about listing bitcoin products, though it still has reservations about the nascent asset class.
“Before we move forward with anything like Bitcoin we want to make sure we understand the underlying transaction which isn’t the easiest thing to do,” Bloomberg quotes him as saying, “we want to understand the volatility and make sure clients are in line and make sure regulators are in line.”
“We are deep at work with it,” he added.
Tessler said that the company is “not at the same stage” in its comfort level with bitcoin as CME, its Chicago-based rival and the world leader in regulated bitcoin futures trading. CME has also said that it is gauging client interest in an ethereum futures product, and its recent launch of an ether price index has laid the groundwork for that development.
But while CME and fellow Chicago exchange CBOE have seen as much as $670 million in combined bitcoin futures volume during a single trading session, no major European exchange has listed derivatives products for bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.
As CCN reported, regulated UK trading platform Crypto Facilities has launched futures products for bitcoin, ether, and XRP. Pricing data from the exchange’s bitcoin and ether products is included in CME’s bitcoin and ether reference rate indices. However, these products have yet to catch on at larger venues like Deutsche Boerse.
In the US, meanwhile, the operators of both the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq are holding discussions about listing cryptocurrency products, and the NYSE is rumored to be considering whether to launch a full-fledged cryptocurrency exchange.
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