11/12/2017 Bitcoin Futures Top $18,000, Soar 20% From Open - Halted for Second Time | Zero Hedge

Bitcoin Futures Top $18,000, Soar 20% From Open - Halted for Second Time

by Tyler Durden
Dec 11, 2017 5:19 AM

653
SHARES

Update: At 10:05pm ET,  the CFE halted trading in Cboe Bitcoin Futures (XBT), in accordance with CFE Rule 1302(i)(ii) which defines the threshold for the halt
as a 20% surge. XBT will re-open for trading approximately five (5)minutes from the time of the halt.
Bitcoin Futures have topped $18,000 for the first time...

It was reopened at 10:10pm ET.

All of which is odd because Bob Pisani and the rest of the mainstream said that the opening of Bitcoin Futures would bring about the demise of the
cryptocurrency due to the ability to short?

*  *  *

Update: At precisely 8:31pm ET, the CBOE instituted the first ever XBT trading halt, which lasted for two minutes according to a notice on Cboe’s website. XBT
contracts have since resumed trading. As a reminder, the Cboe can halt trading for 2 minutes after 10% swings, and 5 minutes at 20%, an attempt to prevent
wild swings.

Notably earlier in the evenig they exercised discretion and decided nto to halt the XBT trading as the first opening spike occurred...

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***
The CBOE’s website crashed within minutes of the CBOE open on Sunday – which also marked the launch of the first bitcoin futures to trade on a major
exchange... 

... while the price of a bitcoin spiked 10% in five minutes as the new contract with the ticker XBT fluctuated wildly.

The embarrassing crash happened as the entire financial world was closely watching the first historic institutionalization of bitcoin:

Bloomberg TV
@BloombergTV

Bitcoin futures start trading on Cboe, with price hitting as high as

16,660 before slipping below 16,000 bloom.bg/2AqUTDX
2:11 AM - Dec 11, 2017

5 40 59

Shortly after the initial snafu, the CBOE tweeted that "visitors to cboe.com may find site is performing slower than usual and may at times be temporarily
il bl " d h ffi ddi h " ll di i ll "
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unavailable" due to heavy traffic adding that "all trading systems are operating normally."

Cboe
@CBOE

Due to heavy traffic on our website, visitors to cboe.com may

find that it is performing slower than usual and may at times be
temporarily unavailable. All trading systems are operating
normally.
1:33 AM - Dec 11, 2017

237 760 1,173

"Given the unprecedented interest in Bitcoin, it’s vital we provide clients the trading tools to help them express their views and hedge their exposure," said Ed
Tilly, chairman and CEO of CBOE Global Markets, in a statement earlier this month. Trading in Bitcoin futures will be free through the end of December.
Despite the surging interest in what was taking place on the CBOE, a little over an hour after the launch, some 555 XBT jan 2018 futures contracts had traded -
equivalent of roughly $9 million notional... 

... and while futures market depth was virtually non-existant in early trading, the bid/ask spread in the orderbook has since shrunk as depth increased, and is
now "only" $50.

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Indeed, as the tradestation tick chart below shows, as we expected, today's launch is hardly euphoria bonanza some had expected.

Going further out on the curve, just one March 2018 contract has traded one hour into trading.

What is also notable, is that while at least in early trading, bitcoin futures appeared to be trading with a premium as much as $400 above cash, according to
Jared Bilkre, the XBT future was trading around fair value, defined by the Gemini auction price for bitcoin off which the futures are priced.

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Still, it remains to be seen if the futures and spot prices will converge, with the spread still will in the hundreds of dollars while volatility refuses to ease.

As a reminder, the CBOE plans to impose trading limits to curb volatility, halting trading for two minutes if prices rise or fall 10%, and a five-minute halt kicks in
at 20%. Margins for Cboe bitcoin futures, which will be cleared by Options Clearing Corp., will be at 40% or higher.

So far there have been no futures trading halts.

Meanwhile, the price of spot Bitcoin surged immediately after the 6 p.m. open, climbing about 10%, or $1,500 on GDAX to over $16,200, before giving back
much of the early gains...

... as the excitement over this historic moment slowly fades away.

 
And while for at least one person today's first day of trading will never be forgotten, the first documented trade appears to have been a short.

JVH
@Irishroundtable

I was the first one in the world to trade #Bitcoin futures. Losing
trade, but still FIRST!
1:04 AM - Dec 11, 2017
52 171 643

To which there was a caveat...

JVH @Irishroundtable 14h

I was the first one in the world to trade #Bitcoin futures. Losing
trade b t still FIRST! pic t itter com/osHCPgIOns
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trade, but still FIRST! pic.twitter.com/osHCPgIOns

JVH
@Irishroundtable

Of course the person I traded with was first too. And they made
money so they are prolly a better Twitter follow.
1:26 AM - Dec 11, 2017
4 8 91

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The Count • Dec 10, 2017 6:23 PM

What a joke!
Its the amateur hour :-)

WTFRLY  The Count • Dec 10, 2017 6:24 PM

Let the funz begin

Yukon Cornholius  WTFRLY • Dec 10, 2017 6:27 PM

BTC puttin' da squeeze on 'em!

tmosley  Yukon Cornholius • Dec 10, 2017 6:30 PM

The volatility will increase the more retards pile into this paper contract. The volatility is meant to extract their money (the paper traders).
You'd have to be a real idiot to use that rather than just getting on one of the regular exchanges that allows margin trading.

Yukon Cornholius  tmosley • Dec 10, 2017 6:34 PM

Yup. Trading in a 9-5 marketplace when the goods are dealt 24/7 seems like a pretty bad deal for the paper traders. Can't wait to see the
carcasses piling up in the crypto alley.

RAT005  Yukon Cornholius • Dec 10, 2017 6:41 PM

Futures are only closed Friday 6pm until Sunday 5pm, or something within an hour of that, plus 1/2-1 hr. late every afternoon, I forget the
specifics but it certainly isn't 9-5pm.  I would say a bigger problem is that CBOE is trying to tag along, and getting BTC pricing is going to be
very difficult for them.

5:40pm Chicago time, still not reopened.  Imagine the guy that made a short bet leveraged 3:1 and now can't get out :=)

Yukon Cornholius  RAT005 • Dec 10, 2017 6:42 PM

Fair enough. Let's just say it ain't 24/7 like the exchanges are, and that's where these futures will get effed in the ay.

RAT005  Yukon Cornholius • Dec 10, 2017 6:53 PM

5:42pm reopened.... 5:52pm, I think back down...

Latina Lover  RAT005 • Dec 10, 2017 6:54 PM

BTC holders are going to get the Gold and Silver treatment:  billions of dollars of naked short dumped in seconds to manipulate prices down,
courtesy of our satanic central bankster overlords.

RAT005  Latina Lover • Dec 10, 2017 7:04 PM

There is no underlying, it can't be naked shorted.  Maybe the exchange can post fake short bets with no counter party.  Of course, eventually
they would get caught, but it seems that sort of thing rarely matters anymore.
6:04pm reopened.

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Pinto Currency  RAT005 • Dec 10, 2017 7:08 PM

BTC and all of the 10,000 other cryptos are an ideal fit for the CBOE.

As long as you are trading digitized nothings, you fit in perfectly with all of their other contracts.

overbet  Pinto Currency • Dec 10, 2017 7:19 PM

Due to heavy traffic of BUY ORDERS FLOODING OUR SYSTEM we had no choice but to shut it down.

BaBaBouy  overbet • Dec 10, 2017 7:24 PM

Let the Paper Bitcoinz Insanity Begin ~

IH8OBAMA  BaBaBouy • Dec 10, 2017 7:35 PM

Well, Bitcoin didn't blowup tonigt (yet).  Maybe tomorrow or next week.

bobcatz  IH8OBAMA • Dec 10, 2017 7:39 PM

At least not before the Middle East BLOWS UP. http://wp.me/p4OZ4v-2g9

jeff montanye  bobcatz • Dec 11, 2017 6:00 AM

hope president trump is working on the one state solution 2.0: all of palestine, including gaza, is israel; all people inside the borders are voting
israeli citizens.
with about even numbers of jews and arabs in a democracy, moderation should prevail as each tries to seduce splinters of the other so as to form
a majority government.
and that isn't the only superiority israel can have over south africa (the other ex apartheid society): the two sides are somewhat similar physically,
they just need to learn another language, get a new haircut, and wear a different hat.

Citxmech  Pinto Currency • Dec 10, 2017 7:27 PM

Today's performance makes Coinbase look like they have their shit together.

greenskeeper carl  Citxmech • Dec 10, 2017 11:23 PM

 I don't know if I'd go that far. When it hit 19 a few days ago, that hit my sell point to pull about half of my initial stake out, and it flat out
wouldn't function for me. Then it started dropping, so I could of course watch the price drop crazy fast. It finally loaded the sell page when the
price settled out at around 16.5 or so, but that was below my sell point so I held off. I don't have anything in this I'm not prepared to lose, but
that shit would be scary as hell if I had a lot of money in it. I'm still well in the green on my small BTC gamble, so I'm just gonna let it play out
for a while.

MayIMommaDogFac...  greenskeeper carl • Dec 11, 2017 12:41 AM

Are you using the GDAX side of your Coinbase account? 

You can place limit orders there.  The fees are also considerably lower. 

If you have a Coinbase account there is no additional sign-up or anything required for GDAX -- same login will work.

AldousHuxley  MayIMommaDogFace2theBananaPatch • Dec 11, 2017 3:45 AM

https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=6652.0
presentation about Bitcoin at CIA headquarters in  back in 2011

 
Winklevoss twins bought $11M worth of bitcoins with Facebook settlement back in 2013...now worth Billions.

Cboe is basing the price of bitcoin futures using the Gemini Trust Company, an exchange co-founded by the Winklevoss twins

maxblockm  Pinto Currency • Dec 11, 2017 4:22 AM

Like nothing-gold right?
Because real gold doesn't exist either according to you.

zebra77a  RAT005 • Dec 10, 2017 7:44 PM

Grandmas Pension A' Gonna now!!

Justin Case  RAT005 • Dec 10, 2017 11:41 PM

Have you ever seen the house lose? They just enforce the rules when it's not in their favour, like what they did to the Hunts.

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virgule  RAT005 • Dec 11, 2017 12:20 AM

Lots of wrong things in here:
- It's a future contract, so it is always naked shorted. No need to borrow the instrument to short it.
- Tyler's comment about [...bring about the demise of the cryptocurrency due to the ability to short...] seems to imply that going up wildly is the
absence of demise? It's all about timing...
- Finally, it makes no sense that CBOE website goes down which such tiny volume of contracts traded. Or is it just billions of curious price
watchers who are not trading? Sounds like watching a moon landing from the comfort of a TV set - not very relevant to NASA.

pitz  RAT005 • Dec 11, 2017 12:39 AM

Of course it can be naked shorted.  And when the naked shorts become so severely underwater that they can't take it anymore, they can get
Congress to make illegal.  Wham, they are relieved of their obligation.  
 
Longs can never win here in the long run.

Thomas Paine  pitz • Dec 11, 2017 7:25 AM

"Of course it can be naked shorted."  You know, backstopped via printing press?  Welcome (millenials) to the realm of leaping unicorns shitting
rainbow colored skittles.

Stuck on Zero  Latina Lover • Dec 10, 2017 9:21 PM

Anyone selling Bitcoin futures futures options yet? And can I buy these with Bitcoins?

hmmmstrange  Stuck on Zero • Dec 10, 2017 10:46 PM

Yep, but not if you are in the US.

MayIMommaDogFac...  Stuck on Zero • Dec 11, 2017 12:43 AM

I triple-dog-dare ya!

Supafly  Latina Lover • Dec 10, 2017 9:35 PM

Not happening.  All the trades will be settled in cash.  It's not tied to the market at all.  Fantasy Bitcoin is what this is.  Intermediaries just trying to
make a buck.

American Psycho  Supafly • Dec 10, 2017 10:50 PM

Waiting for the fat finger $5BB notional dump in 3, 2, 1..

Spaced Out  American Psycho • Dec 11, 2017 4:50 AM

...-1, -2, -3....

anytime now.... -4, -5........

buyingsterling  Supafly • Dec 11, 2017 12:18 AM

They say the futures have value, so they have value. Just like the 'real' thing.

Mementoil  buyingsterling • Dec 11, 2017 1:55 AM

Sometimes sitting on the sidelines is the reasonable thing to do... nuff said.

swamp  Latina Lover • Dec 11, 2017 3:29 AM

BTC cannot be shorted.

zebra77a  RAT005 • Dec 11, 2017 2:42 AM

This is a competition...

.can?. The CBOE futures market draw away and recapture the sucking hole in fiat that is draining into non-controlled real bitcoin?
So if fBtc is 20% higher than real (whatever that means) Btc but you now have to pay 25% tax on the transaction as its back in fiat land did you
make money?

Its all good they'll just flow grandmas pension into the fBtc before it gets the naked short monkey hammer..

38BWD22  Yukon Cornholius • Dec 10, 2017 8:41 PM

BTC prices have been stable around $15 000 at the three places I checked over the last 20 mins or so: ounce me blockchain info preev com
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BTC prices have been stable around $15,000 at the three places I checked over the last 20 mins or so: ounce.me blockchain.info preev.com

CPL  38BWD22 • Dec 11, 2017 1:38 AM

Same on the Canadian exchanges.  Stable and it's 20k Canadian, which is considerably less than 18k USD if factoring in the exchange rate.
Quadriga Coin Exchange

peterk  Yukon Cornholius • Dec 10, 2017 7:11 PM

hhhhhmmmm...... bitcoin itself isnt even paper

lol
bitcoin is a fools paradise,  tulip  central........ and that  what theyll be worth  eventually.

Indeed i think  tulips will be more expensive than bitcoin, and tulip prices wil be the same they are now.

swamp  peterk • Dec 11, 2017 3:30 AM

BTC can be printed out on paper.

Pinto Currency  tmosley • Dec 10, 2017 6:34 PM

This is perfect practice for when gold rigged LBMA breaks down.

Bay of Pigs  Pinto Currency • Dec 10, 2017 11:07 PM

Nobody seems to care about this issue anymore. All paper backed nonsense and not physical backing at all.

It's a fucking joke.

Rusty Shorts  tmosley • Dec 10, 2017 11:17 PM

Central Banksters operate on a 360 day year. I'm guessing that Bitcoin operates on a 365 day year, fucking amateurs

tmosley  Rusty Shorts • Dec 10, 2017 11:20 PM

When you see a paper bitcoin futures market opening up, you should always turn 360 degrees and moonwalk away.

Rusty Shorts  tmosley • Dec 10, 2017 11:28 PM

This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private...

MayIMommaDogFac...  Rusty Shorts • Dec 11, 2017 12:46 AM

Except for the businesses that the CC companies are bribing, so that they will stop accepting cash.

A_MacLaren  Rusty Shorts • Dec 11, 2017 12:54 AM

I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with ME!

https://youtu.be/2LTkeBqiRJQ

Spaced Out  tmosley • Dec 11, 2017 4:48 AM

"You'd have to be a real idiot to use that rather than just getting on one of the regular exchanges that allows margin trading."
WHOOOSH!!!

HRClinton  Yukon Cornholius • Dec 10, 2017 11:27 PM

BTC + AU = Fiat killer

Wile-E-Coyote  HRClinton • Dec 11, 2017 2:59 AM

I wish you would change that Avatar, it's very disturbing!

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