Wall Street financialization of Bitcoin continues as CME seeking to allow derivative trading

9:42 AM bitcoin, bitcoin miners, cme, commodities, crypto currency, derivatives, futures contracts, wall street No Comments

The CME Group is in the process of finalizing a patent for a Bitcoin derivative contract that would allow Bitcoin miners to hedge their production of Bitcoin currency.

In a new report on April 17, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is planning to allow for derivative trading of Bitcoin futures on the nation's largest commodity exchange, and continue Wall Street's financialization of the crypto-currency.

Derivatives giant CME Group is looking to patent a way for bitcoin miners to hedge against operational risks. 

As detailed in a patent application published last week by the US Patent and Trademark Office, the proposed system would receive data from the bitcoin network as a means of keeping contracts up to date – monitoring metrics like network difficulty and price.
CME previously launched a pair of bitcoin price indexes last year. 

The filing is notable as bitcoin mining, the process by which new transactions are added to the bitcoin blockchain, is a kind of commodities production. Miners expend energy and manpower in exchange for newly minted bitcoins. - Coindesk

The largest problem with this of course is that derivatives and futures contracts for both commodities and currencies are allowed to be bought and sold by banks and other entities who have no skin in the game.  And it is this type of trading that has led to the suppression of gold and silver since their prices are determined by benchmark auctions in London, and paper futures contracts at the Comex.