Major Wall Street Institutions are Finally Launching an Ethereum Futures Market

Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe), $29 billion brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, and several other large investment firms are supporting the launch of ErisX, a futures market that will integrate Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin along with Bitcoin.

Frank Chaparro at The Block exclusively reported that former Citigroup Head of Quantitative Execution Thomas Chippas left the US-based banking giant to develop ErisX.

For many months, since the debut of the Cboe and CME Group Bitcoin futures market, investors in the cryptocurrency market called for the launch of an Ethereum futures trading platform.

ErisX is expected to launch as the first regulated US-based futures market for Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.

Interest in Crypto Hasn’t Slowed Down in Bear Market

JB Mackenzie, TD Ameritrade’s Managing Director of Forex and Futures, told Chaparro in an interview that the cryptocurrency economy has seen rapid development and growth over the past nine months despite the bear market and the downtrend of major digital assets.

Given the increase in interest towards crypto during a phase in which cryptocurrencies are struggling to record large movements on the upside, Mackenzie stated the firm is confident that it will see large demand from customers.

“We expect we will have customers interested in participating. The digital asset economy has been developing so much over the last nine months and investors are crying for a regulated, transparent platform,” Mackenzie said.

Chippas, the CEO at ErisX, echoed the sentiment of Mackenzie and emphasized that there is sufficient demand in the crypto market for clearing houses and regulated exchanges to compete. He said:

“In our opinion there is no lack of interest in building out markets for people wishing to trade digital assets and there is plenty of space for people to come in with a regulated exchange and clearing house.”

Crypto Market Infrastructure is Improving at a Rapid Rate

In the past nine months, the cryptocurrency sector has seen the emergence of Bakkt, Coinbase Custody, BitGo Custody, Seba and ErisX, all of which are supported by major financial institutions and investment firms.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup have revealed that they already have developed the infrastructure to offer cryptocurrency custodian solutions and are awaiting the greenlight from regulators to begin serving investors in the crypto market.

Previously, Coinbase Chief Technical Officer Balaji Srinivasan explained that the cryptocurrency market has historically gone through several bubble-burst-build-rally phases. The past nine months has shown more significant development pertaining to market infrastructure than the sector has seen in previous eight years.

As new companies backed by Wall Street firms, investment and banking giants enter the cryptocurrency market to offer products and services the sector lacks, the market is expected to grow at an exponential rate, which may lead to institutional investors entering the cryptocurrency market in the months to come.

Some reports have claimed that institutional investors have already started to acquire Bitcoin through the over-the-counter (OTC) market, through brokerages like DRW and Circle, which saw a triple digit growth in its OTC cryptocurrency trading businesses in the past few months.

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