Three days after launching trading in bitcoin futures, Cboe Global Markets has created its Cboe Gemini Bitcoin Futures Index (XBTX), a new strategy performance benchmark index designed to replicate a constant one-month position in Cboe XBT Bitcoin Futures (XBT).
Since the start of trading, more than 5,000 XBT futures contracts (single counted) have been traded on the futures exchange, according to company officials.
A strategy benchmark is intended to provide an objective, rules-based approach to describing a particular investment outcome. Strategy benchmarks can serve as an informational tool or as the underlying interest for investment products.
The Cboe Gemini Bitcoin Futures Index is designed to track the performance of a systematic strategy that holds a long position in XBT futures that is rolled continuously throughout the period between the futures last trade dates to maintain a constant one-month XBT futures exposure.
The benchmark is intended to simulate a hypothetical long exposure to bitcoin through CFTC-regulated futures contracts traded on CFE, which settle to the auction price of bitcoin in U.S. dollars on the Gemini Exchange. The index is expected to provide investors and issuers a useful tool that can help them design and implement strategies that incorporate the use of XBT futures to meet their investment objectives.
Cboe will begin disseminating values for the Cboe Gemini Bitcoin Futures Index through quote vendors tomorrow, Thursday, December 14, after 3:15 p.m. CT.
Over the last five years, the total value of all bitcoin outstanding (i.e., “market capitalization”) has grown from less than $1 billion to over $290 billion. The total value of all cryptocurrency tokens outstanding is now estimated to be over $420 billion.
Cboe has been a worldwide leader in creating benchmark indexes designed to help investors track the performance of investment strategies that use options and volatility products to help manage risk and enhance yield. Cboe currently publishes data on more than 30 strategy performance benchmark indexes, including BXM, PUTR and the Cboe VIX Tail Hedge Index (VXTH).
