ICE Releases Initial Margin Limits for Bakkt’s Coming Futures Trading

The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has announced tentative margin requirements for Bakkt Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading contracts. The announcement appeared on ICE’s official website on Sept. 9.

Bakkt futures margin requirements

Per the notice, the initial hedge requirement for daily and monthly futures contracts is $3,900. The speculative initial requirement for both contracts is $4,290.

The inter-month add-ons for the monthly and daily futures contracts are between $400 and $1,000 for the hedge rate and between $440 and $1,100 for the speculative rate.

These margin requirements represent the latest developments surrounding the long-awaited Bakkt futures contracts. Earlier this week, Bakkt announced that Bitcoin deposited at its warehouse is protected by a $125 million insurance policy. Deposits and withdrawals from the warehouse began on Sept. 6.

ICE's announcement also pointed out that the full launch is scheduled for later this month, since the company received regulatory approval to launch trading on Sept. 23, adding:

“ICE Futures U.S. will begin to trade and ICE Clear US will begin to clear the BakktTM Bitcoin (USD) Monthly and Daily Futures contracts on Monday, September 23, 2019. [...] As such, the following tentative margin requirements will be effective with the opening of business on September 23, 2019 and thereafter.”

A momentous launch

During an interview in August concerning the regulatory approval of futures, investor and Morgan Creek Digital Assets co-founder Anthony Pompliano said:

“The more infrastructure that's built around this, the more likely it is to never go away [...] we're at a tipping point now where Bitcoin is here to stay. It’s going to end up being in every institutional investor’s portfolio.”