Bitcoin Forum

According to CNBC, CBOE bitcoin futures were frozen on a 10% change. 10% change in bitcoin is not at all new or interesting.

https://www.c[Suspicious link removed]m/2017/12/13/bitcoin-futures-briefly-halted-after-plunging-10-percent.html

Is wallstreet ready for bitcoin if this is how they react to a 10% change in price?

* edit to fix link

Weird link dude I think you messed up in posting it but yeah that is quite funny actually :D. They are in for a wild ride when the 20% days come about soon hopefully their platform can handle that action :D.

This is completely normal for CBOE futures markets. Like many regulated markets, the CBOE has price limits and trading halts built into the contract specifications (http://cfe.cboe.com/cfe-products/xbt-cboe-bitcoin-futures/contract-specifications).

Basically, if the price moves 10% beyond the prior day's closing price (in either direction), trading is halted for 2 minutes. If the price moves 20% in a day, then trading gets halted for 5 minutes. These are known circuit breakers that are intended to cut down on trading volatility.

This doesn't mean that Wall Street isn't ready for Bitcoin. This is just how regulated markets work.

So it means that they are prepared for almost everything, they took the control of almost all the scenarios to make sure that they will never lose money, that's great! For them of course.


Are there "real" people putting money on those futures? or at least, people with a tiny knowledge about investments?

If i had a friend who told me that he was going to invest in bitcoin futures, i would probably punch him in the face because that is the worst thing that you can tell to a crypto lover, lmao.

Trading halts might temporarily reduce volatility, but that would only be true if the underlying spot market followed the CBOE futures market. By all observations, it appears to be the reverse: the futures market follows the spot market, with minor exceptions.


Yeah, I believe both institutional firms/hedge funds and Main Street investors have access to the market, as it's available through most major broker-dealers. In general, I would guess that the people trading regulated futures generally understand markets and may be hedging operational exposure (i.e. not trading to profit but to hedge). Whether they understand Bitcoin is another matter entirely....

Something keeps messing up the link i post it should be to CNBC (which i think is a good site, but the mods can correct me if i am wrong).