The price of Bitcoin (BTC) increased from $12,920 to $13,600 in four hours, recording a 5% rally. The uptrend coincides with positive developments from the European Central Bank, or ECB, and optimistic job data from the United States. Macro factors favor Bitcoin rally Throughout the past week, BTC has continuously rallied despite negative macro factors. The U.S. stock market was in a steep decline, and the number of COVID-19 cases across the U.S. and Europe rose sharply. The perception of Bitcoin as a safe-haven asset is noticeably strengthening due to the rise in institutional demand. But when risk-on assets, such …

Major cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX has launched trading in “fractional stocks offerings” — tokenized products representing the shares of global firms. The products were launched on Oct. 29 in partnership with German-licensed investment Firm CM-Equity and tokenization firm Digital Assets AG. More than one dozen equity and crypto pairings are available for trade on FTX, including fractionalized Tesla (TSLA), Apple (APPL), and Amazon (AMZN) derivatives. Fractionalized ownership lets the derivatives be broken down into smaller sizes than whole units, allowing retail traders to speculate on expensive stocks like Tesla’s with less capital. “These products demonstrate a powerful future, in which …

A total of 62K Bitcoin (BTC) options are set to expire this Friday, and this is equivalent to $830 million in open interest. These massive numbers fail to reflect the fact that 58% of these options are now deemed worthless. As we approach the expiry date, call (buy) options above the current level begin to depreciate very fast. It is not worth paying $20 for the opportunity to buy BTC at $14.5K on Friday morning. Therefore, rolling options to the next month is not that helpful. With less than 48 hours to October's expiry, call (buy) options above $14.5K and …

On August 31, 2020, Morpher Labs announced the launch of its flagship Ethereum-based contract trading and prediction market platform, Morpher, with the stated goal of providing users unlimited access to long-and-short trades of real-world stocks, commodities, and FOREX markets. The technical obstructions of such a goal, however, have historically proven tricky to navigate. In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, Morpher Labs CEO Martin Froehler explained that Morpher’s vision is to allow worldwide access to asset classes that normally have multiple barriers in the form of geographical restrictions, middlemen, and steep fees. “The goal of the platform is to enable anyone …

For novice traders, FOMO can be a heavy burden to bear. Resisting the urge to buy Bitcoin (BTC) after a nearly 15% rally, which saw the price break both the $12K and $13K levels in less than 24 hours, is almost impossible. Professional traders are more experienced and know precisely how to play these FOMO-inducing situations. As data has shown, they were mostly adding shorts up to October 20, right before the $12K rupture. Most investors fail to grasp that being a pro trader does not mean all the emerging trends are played profitably. Instead, surviving when things go wrong …

Per guidance released Wednesday evening, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is advising businesses trading in crypto derivatives to hold customer funds very carefully. The new guidance continues the CFTC's interest in carving out rules for custodianship of virtual currencies — an area obviously distinct from any other asset class. Per the commission: "Custodians of virtual currencies are typically not subject to a system of comprehensive federal or state regulation and oversight, which includes safeguarding of these novel assets, and this raises potential risks to the protection of customer funds held at such custodians." The specific provisions of the guidance …

The price of one actual Bitcoin on the open crypto market, known as spot BTC, fluctuates based on a countless number of factors, such as trading volume, usage and adoption. However, other catalysts affect the asset in a roundabout manner. Cash-settled Bitcoin futures trading products from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange stand as one arguable highly referenced indirect element contributing to Bitcoin’s (BTC) price direction. “The Bitcoin derivative products offered by CME are simply a vehicle for accredited investors to place sophisticated and risk-offsetting trades that would otherwise be inaccessible to them,” Shawn Dexter, a decentralized finance analyst at Quantum Economics …

At the start of October, the crypto market was faced with extremely tumultuous financial conditions, thanks in large part to the recent filings against BitMEX, which saw the company’s top brass being indicted by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission on several charges. Not only that, but just a few days before the BitMEX scandal came to light, cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin was hacked to the tune of over $275 million on Sept. 26. In the midst of all this, the crypto derivatives market also witnessed a major development in the form of Binance overtaking Huobi and OKEx to become …

BitMEX's co-founder and former chief technical officer, Samuel Reed, has signed a $5 million unsecured appearance bond for his release from custody pending court proceedings. Reed had been arrested by the United States Department of Justice in Massachusetts on Oct. 1 for flouting money laundering rules in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, as well as illegally offering derivatives trading to U.S. retail customers. Reed's fellow co-founders and colleagues, Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, and Gregory Dwyer, all indicted with the same charges, remain "at large," according to the DoJ. According to the court documents, which were approved on Oct. 1, …

Binance has overtaken Huobi and OKEx to become the largest crypto derivatives exchange by volume in the September figures with $164.8 billion across the month, according to the latest report published by U.K.-based data firm CryptoCompare, CryptoCompare looked at the trading volume of the top-tier exchanges and determined that Binance had seen around $8 billion more volume than its closest competitors, Huobi at $156.3B, and OKEx at $155.7B. BitMEX came in fourth with $56.4 billion in monthly volume for September. The figures show that BitMEX was in trouble even before its leaders were charged with failing to prevent money laundering …

Following the definitive ban of cryptocurrency derivatives in the United Kingdom, cryptocurrency companies in the country shared their thoughts on the matter with Cointelegraph. Among the most affected is CoinShares, a U.K. company known for providing cryptocurrency exchange-traded notes, or ETNs. Unlike exchange-traded funds, ETNs do not necessarily own the underlying asset and are instead a way of tracking the returns of a particular index. When they mature, holders pay or receive the difference between the initial purchase price and the return of the underlying index. Crypto ETNs fell under Tuesday’s broad ban by the Financial Conduct Authority, along with …

In a landmark decision issued on Tuesday by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority, companies in the country will no longer be able to offer cryptocurrency derivatives products such as futures, options and exchange-traded notes, or ETNs, to retail customers. The decision comes almost exactly one year after the regulator first proposed banning these products. In a statement released by the FCA, the regulator claimed that cryptocurrency derivatives are “ill-suited for retail consumers due to the harm they pose.” Several reasons are provided for more detail, including concerns that they have “no reliable basis for valuation,” are subject to abuse …