Yesterday Eurex announced plans to launch futures based on the FTSE Bitcoin Index on April 17. It already has BTCetc ETN Futures listed with physical delivery. The CME launched futures in the U.S. back in 2017. Eurex is the largest options and futures exchange in Europe and is owned by the Deutsche Börse.
“Investors need robust trading and clearing safeguards when engaging in the crypto market,” said Michael Peters, CEO of Eurex. “We are looking forward to cooperating with FTSE Russell and Digital Asset Research to jointly deliver superior transparency, consistency, and safeguards to this emerging asset class.”
The Deutsche Börse Group has extensive digital asset activities. The XETRA exchange has listed numerous crypto ETPs and ETNs for quite some time. It invested more than $100 million in Swiss crypto exchange Crypto Finance. Alongside Commerzbank, it created a digital asset joint venture 360x, which is tokenizing music royalties. And it has invested in the AirCarbon Exchange, which tokenizes carbon credits on its DLT infrastructure.
The Group is also heavily involved in the DLT side of things. It is a backer and critical participant in HQLAX, the institutional collateral mobility solution. And using the DAML smart contract language, ClearStream has created a workflow solution for digital securities, D7. This provides both a centralized securities depository(CSD), which is live and yet to launch blockchain-based distributed CSD.
