Texan broker completes first CME Clearing bitcoin futures trade
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Texan broker completes first CME Clearing bitcoin futures trade 02 January 2018Houston Reporter: Jenna Lomax
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Choice! Natural Gas, a portfolio company of inter-dealer broker OTC Global Holdings (OTCGH), has completed its first bitcoin-denominated futures block trade through CME Clearing.
The trade, which was completed on 22 December 2017, went through the CME Globex electronic trading platform and was cleared via CME ClearPort.
Javier Loya, OTCGH’s chairman and co-CEO, said: “I am proud that OTCGH has achieved this first for our clients and want to recognise the progressive thinking by our brokers at Choice! as well as the team at EOX for making this happen so quickly.”
EOX Holdings is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OTCGH.
CME Group launch its self-certified initial listing of its Bitcoin futures contract on 18 December 2017.
CME Group's Bitcoin futures are cash-settled and based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate, which serves as a once-a-day reference rate of the US dollar price of bitcoin.
Eric Scharf, director of sales and marketing at EOX Holdings, commented: “While OTC Global Holdings has traditionally been known as an energy-focused firm, in recent years we’ve grown to cover the entire spectrum of commodities to meet the expanding needs of our clients.”
He added: “We anticipate brokering more of the fixed-price commodity like we did with this trade as well as supporting the options market when it becomes listed.”
Terry Duffy, CME Group chairman and CEO, said: "We are pleased to bring bitcoin futures to market after working closely with the CFTC and market participants to design a regulated offering that will provide investors with transparency, price discovery, and risk transfer capabilities."
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