On Wednesday, Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, said that it has finally received approval to list cryptocurrency futures to the United States (US) retail customers. The approval comes at a time when the company is involved in a long battle against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Interestingly, it is believed that the news has had a positive impact on cryptocurrency pricing with it clocking a trade volume of $36.8 billion over the last 24 hours. “Coinbase had filed to become a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) back around Bitcoin’s all-time high in November 2021. It seems finally they have won the official approval to launch BTC and ETH futures in the US from the National Futures Association (NFA). This can be considered as a ‘watershed movement’ to bring regulated crypto products to the US customers,” Shubham Hudda, senior manager, markets desk, CoinSwitch, a crypto exchange organisation, told FE Transform-X.
According to data, there has been a rise of 19.72% in the trading price of cryptocurrency from the day before. Add to this, the number of users of cryptocurrency is expected to reach 994.30 million by 2027. While initially it was believed that only institutional customers could trade crypto assets in the US, the approval by the SEC will enable Coinbase to allow the exchange of Bitcoin and Ether, among others, directly to eligible US-based users. Eventually, the result of the approval could lead to increase in value of of cryptocurrencies and increase the number of users. “The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States is now examining a number of applications for spot BTC, ETFs, including one from traditional finance BlackRock. Factors such as low levels of leverage, low volatility, and speculative activity, among others, might contribute to the current price movement. The most valuable cryptocurrency at the moment is expected to be Bitcoin, which is valued at $28,589.96,” Shivam Thakral, CEO, BuyUcoin, a digital asset exchange, explained.
From what is understood, Coinbase shares reached about $81.55 after the approval granted by the National Futures Association (NFA), a self-regulatory organisation appointed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Allowing US investors the access to secure and regulate crypto futures can be the key to unlocking growth and enabling broader participation in the crypto assets economy, as per insights from CoinDesk, a crypto news platform.
“The approval given to Coinbase is expected to be a significant milestone in the cryptocurrency industry. It is believed this would be able to demonstrate the growing acceptance and integration of digital assets into traditional financial markets,” Denis Sklyarov, co-founder, CEO, WiFi Map, a crypto-based DeWi application, concluded.
