Heyyy Guys , what do you think about the Bitcoin futures listings ?
As long as they remain cash settled, which they are as far as I know, they are pretty irrelevant. Cash-settled futures are futures that don't require actual physical delivery of the underlying asset, which would be bitcoin in this case, but rather settling the associated position with cash, for example, dollars. Therefore, I don't think they are going to affect bitcoin prices in any significant degree if at all.
This is actually a big point that I didn't think of beforehand. This would have a big effect on the actual impact that futures would be having on the marketplace, and if it is true that they're cash-settled then there's going to be no real movement from the market aside from speculation and normal volatility.
It almost feels like cheating, to be honest. Not having to deliver a commodity and instead of covering the positions with a cash reimbursement? Seems like gambling and speculating on numbers more than a real investment or option.
Welcome to reality, bro! This is what the best part of the derivatives markets, be it gold, oil, or whatever, consists of. As you said, it is essentially gambling or even cheating, and real merchants, vendors as well as producers have to use special techniques such as hedging to get rid of the speculative part of respective markets. Hopefully, this is not the case with bitcoin so far. At least, not until both cash-settled and physical delivery futures are traded together at the same exchanges.
Right now market participants can tell real bitcoins from imaginary ones. That's the reason why the latter ain't going to affect bitcoin prices significantly.
