Bakkt, the crypto trading platform owned by New York Stock Exchange's operator, has just unveiled the minimum deposit users must make to trade bitcoin futures.
According to the announcement made by ICE Futures U.S., users will have to make a minimum deposit of $3,900 in order to trade daily and monthly bitcoin futures. In addition, the "initial speculative requirement" is $4,290.
John Todaro, Research Director at TradeBlock, has explained that "initial margin requirements" correspond to "the amount of (collateral) assets that must be pledged to open a position. These requirements apply to accounts that already have exposure to bitcoin.
As for the "initial speculative requirement," this applies to accounts that "speculate on bitcoin price movements through futures contracts." Todaro has highlighted:
"The CFTC and other regulating agencies have rules in place to protect futures markets from excessive speculation, which can lead to deviant price fluctuations, volatility, etc."
Both monthly and daily futures contracts will have a hedge rate of $400-$1,000, but the speculative rate will fluctuate between $440 and $1,100. The size of the hedge rates will depend on "expiration dates and differences in contract expiration dates."
The launch of Bakkt bitcoin futures is scheduled for September 23. The company did not expect to launch margin trading, but it changed its mind.
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