Cboe makes a strong comeback! Strong investor demand, CEO says: "We must provide services for them"

Ed Tilly, CEO of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe), stated in an interview with Bloomberg that Cboe may relaunch Bitcoin investment products.

Cboe Makes Strong Comeback

Ed Tilly, CEO of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe), revealed his willingness to relaunch bitcoin investment products during an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, as he stated:

"We are still interested in this area, we have not given up. We are actively building a complete platform, with significant demand from both retail and institutional investors, and we must provide services for them."

Cboe launched bitcoin futures trading in December 2017, becoming the first regulated exchange globally to offer such a product. However, due to limited interest from institutional investors in bitcoin at the time, coupled with the cryptocurrency market being in a bear market, the trading volume of Cboe's bitcoin futures has dropped by over 80% since early 2018, significantly behind its competitor, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Ultimately, CBOE announced in March 2019 that it would cease its bitcoin futures contract services and reassess the necessity of providing digital asset trading services.

In contrast, Cboe's competitor, the CME Group, continues to offer bitcoin futures products even after the bear market, with open interest contracts valued at approximately $2.64 billion, ranking behind exchanges such as Binance, OKEx, and ByBit.

In addition to bitcoin futures products, Cboe also seems inclined to provide a trading channel for bitcoin ETFs. Asset management companies VanEck and WisdomTree have both indicated plans to list on the Cboe bZx exchange in their bitcoin ETF applications submitted to the SEC. Ed Tilly stated:

"We are very hopeful that VanEck's ETF will be approved."

On the other hand, following its partnership with cryptocurrency trading software company CoinRoutes last December, Cboe also announced plans to launch a cryptocurrency index this year, aggregating and providing real-time cryptocurrency price data.