Deutsche Boerse's Eurex Stock Exchange Lists Bitcoin Futures

Deutsche Boerse's Eurex stock exchange now facilitates the trading of Bitcoin BTC/USD futures contracts.

What Happened: According to a Monday tweet from the official Eurex Twitter profile, the exchange launched Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Notes Futures trading under the FBTX ticker. The contracts are backed by Bitcoin reserves held by ETC Group.

This is the exchange's first step in the cryptocurrency derivatives space, according to Eurex, which added it is also "the first regulated market in Bitcoin-related derivatives in Europe."

According to a separate announcement last month, the exchange hopes the new product will allow investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin on a regulated exchange and while leveraging "a transparent price discovery of the underlying" exchange-traded notes.

Randolf Roth, a Member of the Eurex Executive Board, said the firm sees "significant demand from institutional investors to gain Bitcoin exposure in a secure and regulated environment."

For this reason, the firm launched a product meant to allow the firm's customers to "trade and hedge Bitcoin within Eurex’s proven trading and clearing infrastructure without the need to turn to unregulated crypto venues or set up a separate infrastructure, such as a crypto wallet."

Price Action: According to CoinMarketCap data, as of press time Bitcoin is trading at about $46,750 for a 5% jump over 24 hours.