BITCOIN

On February 8, CME Group officially launched Ether futures. ETH futures went live just a little more than three years after CME Group began offering Bitcoin futures. In this interview, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products Tim McCourt discusses the origins of ETH futures, what convinced them that the time was right for the product to go live, how institutional investors’ attitudes towards Ethereum (and crypto as a whole) have changed, and how the response from the market has been. When did you start thinking…

Bitcoin is getting boring at a time when annualized 30-day volatility as of Thursday’s close has seen a sharp downward dip, in a March with its own type of (weather) volatility. Source: CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index To emphasize the point, have a look at the chart above, which shows the volatility of bitcoin daily returns for the past month. To be fair, I’m employing a little chart crime here, starting the y axis at 40% in order to accentuate the drop between March 24-25, as all but the last days of February have…

Thinking about buying some non-fungibles? Maybe you’re even thinking about investing? Maybe you still can’t wrap your brain around the idea of digital art being sold for $69 million, but you’re open-minded, you’ve done your homework and you think the rewards outweigh the risks. And maybe this is money you can afford to lose, so what the hell? [Obligatory disclaimer: Nothing that follows is financial advice. Investing in NFTs – or anything in crypto – is packed with risk and you can lose everything. Proceed with caution.] But if you’re trying to get your…

Bitcoin rose for the first time in three days as traders looked past Friday’s record $6 billion expiration of option contracts to a stronger market next week as April begins. “Returns after prior bitcoin options expiration dates have tended to be positive,” David Grider, strategist at Fundstrat, told clients in an email. “The market is calm based on bitcoin VIX [a volatility index] falling, with room to fall further.”   BTC was changing hands at roughly $52,700 as of 12:03 UTC (8:04 a.m. ET), up 2.9% on the day. An oversold signal on Thursday…

Talk about good timing: In 2017, Camila Russo was on the prowl for a worthy book project. What would be a good subject? What hasn’t been covered?  At the time she was a reporter for Bloomberg. She was astonished to find a juggernaut of a story that was hiding in plain sight: Ethereum. “I was like, ‘I can’t believe that nobody is covering this,’” she says now. There were already crates of books written on Bitcoin, but there were very few, if any, on the world’s second-largest blockchain project. This post…

In December of 2017, bitcoin’s price was surging, even fighting towards $20,000. Meanwhile, CNBC and the cable news set featured a constant string of crypto industry insiders bringing the space to a new audience. It was into that environment that on December 17, 2017, CME Group launched bitcoin futures. Three years on, bitcoin has punched past the significant marker of $20,000 to a high of more than $23,000. CNBC is running a bitcoin ticker, and crypto commentators are standard fare. Despite these superficial similarities, the bitcoin and crypto industry of…

The firm acted shortly after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued the token’s alleged creator, Ripple Labs Inc., for conducting an unregistered and ongoing securities offering. “Prior to the sale of the asset on December 22, 2020, XRP (-20.72%) was approximately 3.8% of the Fund,” the firm wrote. “The Fund liquidated its position and reinvested the proceeds in other portfolio assets.” Subscribe to First Mover, our daily newsletter about markets. SUBSCRIBE By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms & conditions and privacy policy. The Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund…

“MoneyGram will continue to monitor the situation as it evolves,” a company spokesperson told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. “MoneyGram has continued to utilize its other traditional FX trading counterparties throughout the term of the agreement with Ripple.” The SEC alleged in a case filed Tuesday that Ripple used XRP (-20.47%), the cryptocurrency two of its founders created, to conduct an ongoing, $1.3 billion sale of unregistered securities. Subscribe to First Mover, our daily newsletter about markets. SUBSCRIBE By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms & conditions and privacy…