CME Group, an American company that operates the largest derivatives exchange in the world, is going to work with bitcoin. CME’s CEO has announced that these bitcoin futures contracts, known as futures, will likely launch around the second week of December.

Last year, CME was already one of the first established companies to take an interest in bitcoin. For example, she drew up a Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) and a Bitcoin Real Time Index (BRTI). With this they wanted to create a reliable price indication based on various spot prices of bitcoin exchanges worldwide.

The chairman of CME, Leo Melamed, has also made himself heard. He thinks bitcoin could become an entirely new kind of asset, just like gold or stocks. Melamed sees it as a big step for bitcoin:

“It’s a very important step in bitcoin’s history… We will regulate, not make bitcoin wild or wilder. We will tame it into a regular tool to trade in compliance with regulations.”

It remains to be seen what effect these futures will have on the demand and price of bitcoin. The contracts are concluded in cash. So no bitcoin is needed as collateral to trade the futures.

The contracts also contain a limitation on volatility. For example, a contract cannot rise or fall by more than twenty percent compared to the previously agreed price. However, it is possible that parties will hedge themselves on the futures market or the bitcoin market if one of the two goes in a different direction. This reduces the risk of exchange rate fluctuations.