Bitcoin futures begin trading, in a landmark moment for cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin is seen next to the dollar
(Image credit: ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

On Sunday evening, the cryptocurrency bitcoin began publicly trading on the CBOE Futures Exchange, and bitcoin futures quickly shot up as much as 26 percent, triggering two temporary halts to calm the market. Bitcoin has been on a tear, with its value rising more than 1,600 percent this year alone, but before Sunday's launch of a futures exchange market, technical difficulty and other concerns had left many investors on the sidelines. The CBOE exchange and coming futures markets from CME Group and Nasdaq aim to make betting on the world's most famous cryptocurrency open to a wider pool of investors in a more regulated market.

The CBOE futures are only a sliver of the global bets on bitcoin, with contracts nominally worth $40 million trading on the exchange in its first eight hours while some $1.1 billion traded against the U.S. dollar, Bloomberg says, citing Cryptocompare.com data. There are about 16.73 million bitcoin in circulation, collectively worth more than $260 billion, and about 40 percent of those are owned by maybe 1,000 people, Bloomberg reports, giving those "whales" a lot of influence over the price of the cryptocurrency.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.