Intercontinental Exchange, a fortune 500 company, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, is monitoring the developments in the fast growing cryptocurrency market, according to its CEO Jeffrey Sprecher. During an interview with Bloomberg, Sprecher opined that it would be unwise to brush away discard cryptocurrencies and that he might consider offering cryptocurrency derivative contracts in the future.
The recent downturn has not made ICE to view the cryptocurrency markets as a bubble. Sprecher believes that it is too early to judge cryptocurrencies. He feels that people are more comfortable dealing with a promising technology than institutions of government.
According to Sprecher, if people are willing to trust Bitcoin, which is the creation of a pseudo-anonymous person named Satoshi Nakamoto, then financial companies cannot ignore or take it lightly.
Sprecher further stated
“There is a trend here, we can’t ignore in my mind, so I don’t discount it. People put more faith in a guy named Satoshi Nakamoto that no one has ever met than they do in the US Fed.”
Notably ICE has joined hands with a startup company Blockstream to launch a cryptocurrency data feed aimed at institutional clients. However, it was reluctant to offer Bitcoin futures even when the cryptocurrency made new highs on a daily basis in December.
Apart from the two Chicago based exchanges, CBOE and CME, Bitcoin derivatives are also offered on a small scale by LedgerX, a Colorado-based company. Exchanges such as Nasdaq are studying several kinds of cryptocurrency-based products. However, no final decision has been made so far.
Bloomberg
Last month, the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) began considering a proposal made by ICE in December 2017 to list two Bitcoin ETFs on NYSE. If the SEC approves such a proposal, then it would create a new class of retail investors to the cryptocurrency domain.
About ICE
Intercontinental Exchange was founded in 2000 with the idea of transforming the energy markets by creating an electronic marketplace that removed barriers and drove transparency and access. As ICE’s electronic markets and demand for clearing grew, access to new sources of information became necessary to its customers. The exchange saw this evolution and established a data business.
The company connects the largest community of participants in all major markets at key phases of investing, trading, hedging and capital raising life cycle. ICE’s comprehensive markets, clearing houses and data solutions uniquely deliver more mission critical solutions, risk management and data for its customers’ workflow.
