ICE Chief says Bitcoin trading can’t be ignored

7 years ago - Published in Fintech Land

Earlier this week, the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company, Intercontinental Exchange Inc., agreed to acquire the 136-year-old Chicago Stock Exchange and on Monday refused to rule out starting futures contracts on digital currencies, following in the footsteps of two of its rivals.

“There is a trend here we can’t ignore in my mind, so I don’t discount it,” Jeffrey Sprecher, ICE’s chief executive officer, said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “People put more faith in a guy named Satoshi Nakamoto that no one has ever met than they do in the U.S. Fed,” he said, referring to the founder of bitcoin.

ICE’s interest in digital currency isn’t particularly new. In 2015, NYSE bought a stake in leading San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. This most recent news, however, comes after CME Group Inc. and CBOE Global Markets Inc. already started futures contracts on bitcoin in December 2017. Meanwhile, Nasdaq Inc. is also examining the prospect.

The increased interest in cryptocurrency offerings from traditional financial exchanges comes after many smaller cryptocurrency-focused exchanges have found massive success in the space. It also comes during a time when institutional investors are starting to show a growing interest in capitalizing on the emerging markets exploitable volatility.

On April 6, Bitcoinist reported that controversial Hungarian-American investor, business magnate, and political activist George Soros has officially given the Soros Fund Management permission to trade cryptocurrencies.

Immediately after, Venrock — the Rockefeller family’s official venture capital arm — officially joined forces with Brooklyn-based cryptocurrency investment group CoinFund to invest in cryptocurrency and related projects.

In December, CME Group Inc. and Cboe Global Markets Inc. started futures contract on bitcoin, while Nasdaq Inc. is also considering introducing them.

“People are more comfortable in technology than the institutions of government and society that I grew up with,” Sprecher said.

Furthermore, following the December launch of Bitcoin futures on both the CBOE and CME, trading volume steadily increased as Hong Kong traders turned their backs on the autonomous territory’s less secure domestic exchanges in favor of regulated US markets.