Photo: ReutersHong Kong: The seminal financial event of this year, the current decade, and possibly our generation is here: Futures trading in bitcoin has begun. It’s hard to see how even existing futures trading rules can deal with something as volatile as bitcoin. Pelham Smithers Associates and Albert Maass have done a useful analysis of bitcoin options on futures contracts that currently trade on Deribit, a European derivatives bourse for the digital currency. Bitcoin options, in their current form, only reward expectations of abnormality: a price gain of 50% or more, or an erosion of at least 25%, in one month. For the foreseeable future, bitcoin options look set to remain a boutique parlour game, where cranks will dominate.

Source: Mint December 11, 2017 03:45 UTC