- ErisX has been granted a Derivative Clearing Organization license by the CTFC
- This is in addition to their Designated Contract License which they got in 2011
For a significant amount of time, there has been a push from the crypto industry to get crypto futures approved by various regulatory bodies, most notably the Securities and Exchange Commission who have repeatedly denied several firms who have applied for this.
Fortunately, some hope seems to be on the horizon as ErisX, a Chicago-based crypto exchange has been able to secure a Derivative Clearing Organization license from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This was announced on July 1, 2019, in an official blog post from ErisX, who plan to make digital asset futures contracts available on its regulated derivative markets this year.
New Trades
This is not the only major change that has taken place at ErisX as in April 2019 they launched their spot market and have also stated that they will create a single digital asset platform for spot and futures trading. As of now, the spot market exchange includes US dollar trading pairs with bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether, and litecoin.
According to Laura Cristea, who is the general counsel at ErisX, the exchange will have a single platform that accommodates both futures and sports trading. Their CEO, Thomas Chippas has said that the exchange distinguishes itself from others by having both the DCA license and the Designated Contract License which have had since 2011.
“ErisX is unique in that for our digital asset market, we have divided the trading and settlement functions using traditional DCM (exchange) and DCO (clearing) models… This reflects the structure that institutional investors expect from other asset classes and will help drive these markets toward greater relevance and accessibility,” he said.
The Significance of This
One of the major touchstones of adoption is the acceptance of crypto trading by mainstream regulators which is why the Bitcoin ETF has been so openly and heavily pursued by various firms within the industry despite all the setbacks. The acceptance of the crypto ETF by the CTFC could be a starting point to the Bitcoin ETF eventually been approved by the FCC in the future.
This, coupled with the institutional attention being given to crypto, it could spell even more adoption to come.
