The chess match between the banks and Bitcoin just got real. CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, announced that it intends to launch bitcoin futures in the fourth quarter of 2017, pending all relevant regulatory review periods.
The new contract will be cash-settled, based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) which serves as a once-a-day reference rate of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin. Bitcoin futures will be listed on and subject to the rules of CME.
Bitcoin futures are explicitly not going to be settled in Bitcoins. They will be settled in dollars. This means that this contract is a means by which to use unlimited dollars to control the dollar price of Bitcoin.
Now we know why the SEC squashed all Bitcoin ETFs. It had nothing to do with liquidity, valuations or consumer protection. It had everything to do with creating synthetic bitcoins made of of dollars to be used by the big banks to dominate and control the valuation of the market.
Anyone who doesn’t believe me in saying that has never watched a minute’s worth of the gold trade.
This is how they control the gold price. They issue unlimited supply of paper gold, settled not in gold but in dollars, to keep the price in the range they believe it should be kept in over a particular period of time.
This is done to suit their needs, not the needs of the gold market participants, i.e. the mining companies, investors, end-users.
All markets are subject to manipulation. And when the manipulators are a protected class of bankers controlling the wealth of the society the possibility of institutionalized manipulation and fraud exists.
Understand that from an evolutionary biology perspective Bitcoin is a mutation which rises to the level of existential threat to central-bank-issued debt-based currency. Gold was put on the futures exchange when they finally realized they could do a better job controlling its price and the perception of the dollar’s strength better than refusing to allow a futures market for it at all.
Bitcoin is getting that same treatment.
Now, like the good little oligarchs that they are, they’re finally scared enough of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies that they are going to cap their growth through good ol’ fashioned leverage and market manipulation.
Everything else has failed to stem the tide so now it’s time for this battle tactic to be employed.
When CME announced plans for Bitcoin Futures, an article titled Bitcoin dips a toe into the mainstream was published and I do agree to that, it is a big news, legitimacy. But instead of physical delivery, cash-settled contracts and that's a bit unnerving. Possible emergence of a secondary market that might suppress the primary free market. Flow of cash getting diverted to the secondary market. Natural vs artificial scarcity. The Bitcoin market might finally get stable and less volatile which is good, but the stability might be achieved by means of artificial scarcity, suppression, and manipulation by centralized players. In terms of recognition, a CFTC approved Bitcoin futures is definitely positive, but the long-term effect might not turn out to be a positive one.
The CFTC may or may not approve this proposal. If approved and a large capital flows into this market, in the long-term would it be good or bad for Bitcoin? Would the resulting stability and liquidity be good or bad?
https://hackernoon.com/bitcoin-futures-the-bank-attack-on-the-crypto-market-29e1b38a5da 
