JPMorgan and the future of bitcoin futures
Does the bank’s about-face open it up to lawsuits if it turns out it was right all along? Is the advent of a futures market an existential crisis for bitcoin? Matt Levine considers some knotty questions
I want you to imagine a time, in the not-too-distant future, where the following things have happened (in this order): 1. Bitcoin futures have started trading on the CME’s futures exchange, which they are scheduled to do by next month. 2. JPMorgan Chase has offered its institutional trading customers access to the bitcoin futures contract through its futures brokerage, as it is contemplating doing. 3. Everyone has decided that bitcoin is dumb and its price has collapsed, as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has said it will. I do not want to speculate on the likelihood of these events. (Well, #1 seems pretty much inevitable, and I would bet on #2 myself, but you’re on your own on #3.) But you will concede that they are all at least possible.
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