[2017-12-31] CME Launches Bitcoin Futures Trading Simulator

[Terraformer]

Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has launched a market simulation tool that allows newcomers to practice trading bitcoin futures without risking any capital. The free tool has been added to the company’s ‘CME Institute Suite’.

CME Tweeted About the New Simulator on December 27th – Less Than Two Weeks After Launching Its Bitcoin Futures Markets

Earlier this week, CME posted on Twitter alerting followers that the company had launched its new bitcoin futures simulator. The simulator will offer new investors the opportunity to practice trading the bitcoin futures markets without risking any capital losses, and will also allow more experienced traders to try out the company’s platform and experiment with new trading strategies in a risk-free environment.

The launch of the market simulation tool is likely designed to attract new participants in the bitcoin markets to CME in a bid to attain dominance in the bitcoin futures contracts-for-difference (CFD) markets.

On December 18th, CME Became the Second United States-Based Financial Market Company to Launch Bitcoin Futures

CME’s bitcoin futures launch followed that of CBOE – who launched their bitcoin futures contracts on December 10th. The new markets have also been exposed to traders using major retail brokerages – with TD Ameritrade allowing clients to trade CBOE’s futures contracts, and Interactive Brokers recently announcing its intention to soon allow customers to trade CME’s futures contracts in addition to CBOE’s bitcoin CFDs. Interactive Brokers claimed that it handled over half of the trading volume seen on CBOE’s launch day, despite the platform maintaining a margin requirement 150% larger than CBOE.

Major market-making firms DRW, DV Trading, and Akuna Capital have also indicated that they will provide liquidity to the bitcoin futures markets.

Despite the hype leading up to the launch of the bitcoin futures market, volume has thus far been dwarfed by the scale of trade being conducted on leading cryptocurrency exchanges. As of this writing, 1,078 contracts have been traded on CME, and 4,790 on CBOE.

https://news.bitcoin.com/cme-launches-bitcoin-futures-trading-simulator/

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[AK47-]

Bear in mind that, that gold futures volumes of the month was around 150000 which is far less because of the holidays. As entire trading is mute around this period.  But nonetheless, this is great news as CBOEs and CMEs listing of BTC caused it to hit a record high of 19500 usd, this move will only act as a proponent in gaining mainstream investors' trust and possibly hike BTC price.

[richardsNY]

It's nothing really groundbreaking to be honest. If we look at similar markets, they as well offer a virtual wallet with "play money" to test out before diving into it for real. I however don't see much value in these try tools since they in no way offer you a similar experience like when you use real money. With real money people choose a far more defensive way of investing than when they get the opportunity to play around with futures for fun. With money at stake your decisions will be completely different, and that's something people don't seem to get. On top of that, investing through futures is similar to gambling, so the risks are immense.

[J. Cooper]

I'm positive other borokers have this as well. They allow you to open a demo account with a balance of about $500K for you to allow you to get 'the hang of it'. So what we're seeing here is nothing new at all. But in the end it's just educated gambling especially when dealing with futures. So it doesn't matter how long you practice with the demo account you will always risk losing your money because it's basically a 50/50 chance you will either win or lose your money.

[botany]

This is interesting. It might help some newbie traders get familiar with the interface.
I don't see any practical use beyond that for a trading simulator.