Antonopoulos: Cash-Settled Bitcoin Futures Traders Face 'Black Hole'

Bitcoin educator Andreas Antonopoulos says that while futures markets may indeed place a damper on the cryptocurrency's price, the stakes are different to what you might think.

In a Nov. 27 interview with YouTuber "Ivan on Tech," Antonopoulos argued against the grain of commonplace fears about the adverse price impact that Bitcoin futures trading has on spot prices.

Cash-settled Bitcoin futures - which have been trading since December 2017 on both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Exchange - have consistently drawn suspicion from traders and analysts, with many contending that Bitcoin's price is vulnerable to manipulation in advance of contract settlements.

"We know for a fact that when the Bitcoin bubble started to go up really fast in 2017, the U.S. Treasury decided to fast-track the deployments of futures markets in order to stop that bubble."

"It's not really a market with full liquidity on both sides of the order board.

Ironically, naysayers who had once decried volatility are now decrying futures "manipulation," he quipped.

Importantly, Antonopoulos said, futures critics often overlook the real stakes of cash-settled cryptocurrency shorting.

"If they faced a situation of a renewed Bitcoin bubble and they continued to take a contrarian position against the market, they'd be throwing fiat into a black hole.

As reported, Intercontinental Exchange's Bakkt platform has recently confirmed its forthcoming launch of a cash-settled Bitcoin futures contract.

The new product will be settled against data from Bakkt's existing physically-delivered Bakkt Bitcoin Monthly Futures contract - a pioneering product that was the first to give futures traders direct exposure to the underlying cryptocurrency.