Cboe's bitcoin futures market goes live Sunday — but some of Wall Street's biggest banks are sitting it out

Michael Corbat

Larry French/AP

 

• Bitcoin blew past $16,000 a coin Thursday, but Wall Street banks don't appear too eager to get in on the crypto-mania. 

• The Wall Street Journal found Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup won't provide their clients access to Cboe's bitcoin futures market. 

• Cboe, the options and derivatives exchange based in Chicago, is launching its market for bitcoin futures Sunday.

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Cboe Global Markets' bitcoin futures market will go live Sunday, but some Wall Street banks don't plan to get involved, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. 

The futures market, which Cboe has been planning for more than six months, will allow investors to bet on the future price of bitcoin. Investors in the market won't have to actually touch the red-hot coin, known for its spine-tingling volatility. 

Still, that doesn't appear to have mollified the anxieties of Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. The two firms will not offer clients access to Cboe's bitcoin futures market on Sunday, according to the Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley and Societe Generale, a French bank, are still considering entering the market for their clients. 

A spokesperson for Cboe declined to tell The Journal which banks were participating in the market on Sunday. 

Banks have had a less favorable view of cryptocurrencies than Wall Street exchanges. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon famously called bitcoin a "fraud." Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said in November his firm was in no rush to develop a strategy on bitcoin, according to a Bloomberg News report. 

Still, bitcoin blew past $16,000 a coin on Thursday, according to data from Markets Insider. 

Read the full report at The Wall Street Journal >>

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