CFTC Chairman Is Hopeful That Ethereum Futures Will Arrive By 2020

The chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) - Heath Tarbert - showed optimism over the arrival of the first Ethereum Futures contracts by the next year of 2020.

Tarbert was addressing the audience at the Georgetown University during the ongoing DC Fintech week, where he told moderator Chris Brummer” “I’d say it is likely that you would see a futures contract in the next six months to a year. The volume to which it’ll trade, no idea, that’s where the markets decide, but my guess is now that we’ve provided at least … a little bit more clarity on [ether’s eligibility for futures contracts], my guess is market participants will consider that.”

Thus, Tarbert clearly hints that the CFTC is likely to give a green light for launching Ethereum Futures. However, the question remains whether there is enough demand for the futures product and who is willing to offer them.

Earlier this month, the CFTC chairman clarified the agency’s position on Ethereum and said that it is a ‘commodity’. “We’ve been very clear on bitcoin: bitcoin is a commodity. We haven’t said anything about ether—until now. It is my view as chairman of the CFTC that ether is a commodity,” he said.

This clearance from CFTC gives financial institutions a chance to create and launch new Ethereum-derivative products in the market.

Mr. Tarbert also clarified that approving an Ethereum Futures product depends more on the application itself. “Exchanges “could start it on their own or they could come to us with an application and ask us to grant it to be able to [offer the product]. Now in the past most people have not been self-certifying, they’ve been coming to us particularly if they’re creating an entirely new exchange and DCO [derivatives clearing organization] so it’ll depend I think in large part on who wants to have it on their trading platform,” he said.

Tarbert also mentioned that the CFTC might other cryptocurrencies as commodities. He stressed that there are enough chances of other commodity products coming to the market: “There will be other derivatives coming soon to a market near you for crypto assets. As the the SEC sort of works through its process [and] we work through ours and other regulators, it’s likely we’ll see more but I can’t tell this audience that it’s necessarily coming soon because even the two that we thought about – bitcoin and ether – it took us quite some time to work through those.”