[2017-12-11] CBOE Launches Bitcoin Futures, Site Immediately Crashes

[cybersofts]

CBOE Launches Bitcoin Futures, Site Immediately Crashes



In a vindication of cryptocurrency exchanges which have had their share of growing pains this year, CBOE launched Bitcoin futures trading at 5 PM Central time and their website went down within minutes. CBOE has confirmed that the slowness (and 404 errors) users are receiving are due to much higher than normal traffic:
 
    "Due to heavy traffic on our website, visitors to https://t.co/jb3O722hoo may find that it is performing slower than usual and may at times be temporarily unavailable. All trading systems are operating normally.
    — Cboe (@CBOE) December 10, 2017


Since the beginning of the year, digital currency adoption and price appreciation have been off the charts, causing virtually all major exchanges to face their share of slowdowns and crashes. Many had speculated that once Wall Street got involved, with robust servers capable (and used to) handling enormous amounts of traffic, they would blow away traditional Bitcoin exchanges. Apparently, even mainstream Wall Street firms are going to have difficult dealing with Bitcoin’s demand.


Still volatile

Facing the opening of futures today, Bitcoin’s price has been ever volatile. Within minutes of the futures markets opening, the price soared by over $1,000 only to immediately fall by half that. At press time, the price is back on the climb.

    "This is fascinating to watch.
    Bitcoin jumps $1200 in 7 minutes and then falls $500 in 1. All the while, the CBOE has yet to get through the imbalances and open the contract for trading.
    At this rate, BTC will hit one of the circuit breakers before the CBOE can even get rolling! pic.twitter.com/AAzzE3MshN
    — TF Metals Report (@TFMetals) December 10, 2017

It’s hard to say how accurate “sentiment” is, but many on the /r/BitcoinMarkets subreddit were staying in fiat until the launch of the futures markets. In recent weeks, there has been a great deal of fear that the opening of regulated futures trading could make it easier for institutional investors to short the currency, driving the price down. Judging by the price action right now, those fears seem to have mostly abated, but traders remain jittery.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/cboe-launches-bitcoin-futures-site-immediately-crashes

[Lancusters]

Lately a lot of talk about futures. But I think that this hype will pass and everything will be as it is now. Bitcoin always shows amazing resistance to all external stimuli. If futures are not user-friendly they won't use them and the topic will be closed. I am sure that bitcoin will remain as is and the sale will take place at existing exchanges.

[J. Cooper]

That's actually pretty ironic that suddenly with all the new incoming traffic the CBOE site went down. I remeber so 'important' figure in finance say that the futures contracts would tame bitcoin but it really seems like it's the other way around today. I think the volatility was expected, I went ahead and checked and the price actually did jump $1500 in a matter of minutes which is quite special but it isn't a the same time. We'll probably experience similar market movement friday when the futures contracts launch on CME.
I'll leave you guys with this. https://twitter.com/JimBTC/status/940076411817041922

[eyesopen]

ha ha that is funny

welcome to crypto land CBOE, yes it is more popular and more of a demand than you thought.

there was a little fall in price but is back up again now, bitcoin does indeed survive everything that is thrown at it.

[1Referee]

As expected, a relatively normal trading day with just the regular dose of volatility, nothing really special. If you browse through the forum, then the general expectations are that the market would boom massively at the time of opening the future markets. Despite the price having gone up madly already this year, people somehow still aren't totally satisfied. It takes time for these future markets to have somewhat of a significant impact on Bitcoin's market, where we still have more important entities to come on board, such as CME and Nasdaq, and who knows what follows after that. Institutions at least have a way for now to gamble through these Bitcoin tied futures, which is something we years ago could only dream of.

[CryptoHarry]

I thought site crashing was in the past. I can't believe CBOE can allow such thing to happen as big as they are, that's lame!

[DooMAD]

Many had speculated that once Wall Street got involved, with robust servers capable (and used to) handling enormous amounts of traffic, they would blow away traditional Bitcoin exchanges. Apparently, even mainstream Wall Street firms are going to have difficult dealing with Bitcoin’s demand.

Since they aren't transacting in actual Bitcoin, or if it's held, the trading is all done off chain, they aren't really in competition with "traditional" Bitcoin exchanges (and slightly OT, but is "traditional" really the right word when exchanges are, much like Bitcoin itself, still less than a decade old?).  The same goes for ETFs if they eventually get clearance to go ahead.  None of this stuff will ever touch the blockchain itself.  But with exchanges, once you withdraw the funds, they're safely on the blockchain and they belong to you, guarded by your private keys.  I'm pretty sure that's not what the banksters are doing.

Wall Street technically isn't "involved" when talking about futures and ETFs, they're merely watching from the sidelines and making a few bets (which may still have some impact on the fiat price, but it's still not the same thing).