Bitcoin Cash holds near $275 after CME futures launch

Bitcoin Cash traded at $275.30 at 16:47 UTC on Oct. 25, according to CoinGecko. The price was up 1.6% over 24 hours and 1.9% over seven days. BCH had a market capitalization of about $5.53 billion and ranked 22nd among crypto assets.

CME Group launched Bitcoin Cash futures on Oct. 19. The contracts include a standard product covering 250 BCH and a Micro contract covering 25 BCH. At the current price, their notional values are about $68,750 and $6,875, respectively. Futures allow traders to take long or short positions and hedge exposure without holding or borrowing BCH.

FalconX and GSR completed the first BCH futures block trade on Oct. 20, according to CME. A block trade is privately negotiated between counterparties before being submitted to the exchange for clearing.

“With trading now underway in our Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap futures, we are providing clients with more versatility to manage cryptocurrency risk and exposure through our robust 24/7 marketplace,” Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group’s global head of cryptocurrency products, wrote in the company’s announcement.

Griffin Sears, FalconX’s head of derivatives, described growing institutional interest in digital assets with specific use cases, including Bitcoin Cash in payments and Uniswap in decentralized finance.

Grayscale filed on Sept. 14 to convert its Bitcoin Cash Trust, known by the ticker BCHG, into a spot Bitcoin Cash exchange-traded fund. The proposed conversion remains pending and has not been approved or made effective. If approved, the fund would offer BCH exposure through a national exchange and use the creation-and-redemption process common to spot ETFs.

Bitcoin Cash has a maximum supply of 21 million coins and follows Bitcoin’s four-year halving schedule. About 20.11 million BCH were circulating, or roughly 95.7% of the maximum supply. Less than 900,000 coins remain to be issued.

BCH traded between about $265 and $343 over the past 30 days. The cryptocurrency remains 92.7% below its December 2017 record high of $3,785.82. It has fallen 45.7% over the past year and 17.5% over the past 30 days.

CME reported record third-quarter revenue of $1.7 billion on Oct. 21, along with $1 billion in net income and average daily trading volume of 29.4 million contracts. The exchange also lists futures or related products linked to Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana, Cardano, Chainlink, Stellar, Avalanche and Sui.

Each futures contract has a buyer and a seller, so the listing does not automatically create demand for BCH. The contracts can support both speculative positions and hedging activity. Any effect on the spot market will depend on subsequent buying or selling of BCH.