Investing.com - Bitcoin rebounded on Friday, in what has been a wild week for the digital currency, as CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) confirmed the launch of its long-awaited futures contract in about two weeks’ time.
On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, Bitcoin was up 6.24%, or $617.19, at $10,525.00 by 9:41AM ET (14:41GMT), after rising as high as $10,760.00 earlier.
“Effective Sunday, December 17, 2017, for trade date Monday, December 18, 2017, and pending all relevant CFTC regulatory review periods, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (“CME” or “Exchange”) will list the Bitcoin Futures contract (commodity code: BTC; rulebook chapter: 350) for trading on the CME Globex electronic trading platform, and for submission for clearing via CME ClearPort,” the exchange announced in a press release.
Both CME and rival Cboe had previously announced that they will both release bitcoin futures this year, while Nasdaq was reported to also have plans to launch its own derivatives contract in 2018.
The hopes for digital currency bulls is that the launch of futures will allow institutional investors to get into the ballgame because they are generally not allowed to invest in unregulated assets. The launch of futures may change the play as these exchanges are all closely supervised by regulators.
Bitcoin, well accustomed to volatile trade, faced a frenzied week of negotiation as it rallied to a fresh all-time high of $11,441 on Wednesday, gaining as much as 15% before tumbling more than 20% to a low of $8,801 amid a flash crash, before rebounding.
The drop was triggered in part by intermittent outages at leading cryptocurrency exchanges and amid growing fears of an asset bubble.
Its meteoric rise this year, of more than 1,000% to its all-time peak and around 992% at current prices, has prompted warnings of an increasingly volatile bubble amid signs that it is moving from the periphery of finance towards the mainstream.
At current prices, bitcoin has a total market capitalization of around $162 billion, more than companies the likes of McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD), IBM (NYSE:IBM), or GE (NYSE:GE).
Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading, Bitcoin Cash was last up 4.95% at $1,377.20, while Bitcoin Gold gained 1.95% to $292.10.
Ethereum, the second most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap after bitcoin, rose 3.94% to $449.42.