There are a few places retail investors can currently trade a Bitcoin futures contract, but these tend to clouded in regulatory uncertainty and most are unavailable to US retail traders. That’s about to change though as LedgerX have recently announced both the first regulated physically settled Bitcoin futures contract and the launch of a new trading platform called Omni which, for the first time, will give US retail investors access to regulated derivative markets.

The physical settlement in Bitcoin is a big step forward for the ecosystem. It means that when a contract expires, the buyer will now receive Bitcoin as opposed to fiat, meaning businesses and miners can now bypass the fiat system entirely, hedging or betting in Bitcoin and settling in Bitcoin. This is just one of the implications the LedgerX’s new contract.

Will this lead to reduced volatility in the Bitcoin price and bring in more institutional investors? I visited LedgerX in New York and spoke with the Co-founder and COO Juthica Chou. We also discussed;

• Regulators being open to Bitcoin
• The licenses required to run a regulated exchange
• If the institutions are coming or if they are already here
• Working at Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis
• Betting on the Bitcoin halvening
• $20k, $25k and $50k contracts
• Bitcoin being better than gold
• Wall street's interest in Bitcoin
• Ledger X’s competition