During the last week of September, the major cryptocurrencies got crushed. Bitcoin fell more than 20% from September 21st through September 26th and then slightly rebounded on the 27th by a little less than 2%. A 20% drop for the most well-known cryptocurrency is not uncommon these days, as it fell that much back in July. However, that doesn’t make it an easy pill to swallow when it happens.
But while Bitcoin fell 10% on September 24th, it's closet rivals, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and bitcoin cash fell even more, somewhere between 15% and 20% respectively. The likely cause was the lack of interest from institutional investors after the highly anticipated Bakkt crypto platform began trading its “physically” settled bitcoin futures contracts.
The Bakkt platform was announced more than a year ago and had partnerships with Microsoft and Starbucks and was being touted as a way for institutional investors to get involved with cryptocurrencies. The platform allows futures trading of crypto’s but settles the order with physical coins, not cash like other crypto futures platforms currently offer. The thinking was that because the futures contracts had to be settled with actual coins, this would increase the demand for the different crypto’s being traded through the futures contracts.
However, during the first hour, the platform was live, only five contracts were traded, and even after ten hours, only 28 contracts had traded hands. Many industry experts, both who follow the crypto markets and general futures contracts actually have come out and stated this sort of activity is normal for the first few days of a new commodity being offered through regulated futures contracts. They claim some brokers aren’t ready to clear it, while others want to wait and see how things go, while others may not even have the tickers populated on their risk systems. Continue reading "Bitcoin And Cryptos Tank After Futures Trading Begins"
