‘Tremendous Interest’ in TD Ameritrade’s BTC Futures; ErisX Coming
Major online trading platform, TD Ameritrade claims it has seen strong interest in their Bitcoin futures, while its partnering crypto asset exchange ErisX is on target with all their goals for 2019.
TD Ameritrade provides investing and trading services for 11 million client accounts that total more than USD 1 trillion in assets, and custodial services for more than 6,000 independent registered investment advisors.
The company has seen “tremendous interest” since launching their bitcoin futures product in 2017, said Sunayna Tuteja, head of digital assets and DLT at TD Ameritrade, to Cryptonews.com, adding that 60,000 clients “have traded some type of crypto product” with the platform this year.
When it comes to their clients who are trading bitcoin futures, “the majority are 45+ years old with higher levels of investible assets, which shows more mainstream interest.”
Tuteja says that TD Ameritrade is committed to make “a prudent and responsible” entry into the crypto space, with a focus on education. Last October, TD Ameritrade invested in ErisX, a regulated derivatives exchange and clearing organization that includes digital asset futures and spot contracts. The company considers this strategic investment as a way to show their commitment to innovation and “bring our clients a best-in-class investing and trading experience.”
Matt Trudeau, Chief Strategy Officer at ErisX, told Cryptonews.com that they “have built foundational exchange and clearing infrastructure to address offerings for cash transactions, as well as a regulated futures exchange and a clearinghouse to provide hedging and risk management tools.”
These are complementary offerings, he adds, which will enable trading of both spot and futures on a single infrastructure, “leveraging intermediary services that investors and individual traders have come to expect from the traditional markets.”
ErisX said that they are on target with all of their 2019 goals:
- to launch their spot market, which they did with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin in April, as planned
- receive their license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to operate a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO), which they were granted on July 1st.
- get their Bitlicense from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), which they are working on to further extend their spot offering
- and they will launch their physically delivered digital asset futures market, which will be aligned with their spot market, later this year.
Trudeau said that ErisX will continue to work “closely and collaboratively” to get the proper licenses and “help provide clarity and certainty” for their members. He added that their experience with the CFTC has been a positive one and that it’s “a testament to their approach that they looked at their core principles and rules and figured out how these can be extended to digital assets.”
ErisX is monitoring regulatory, market structure, and international developments, said Trudeau, because for the near term, the company is focused on offering futures products and services under the CFTC jurisdiction, while continuing its evaluation of “strategic opportunities for revenue growth building on our core assets.”
