Bitcoin Cash Explodes As Traders Pile In — CME Futures, Grayscale Filing Fuel BCH Rally

CME Group said it planned to launch Bitcoin Cash futures and Micro Bitcoin Cash futures on October 19, pending regulatory review.

• Bitcoin Cash drew fresh attention as regulated-market products tied to BCH moved forward while trading activity surged.
• BCH jumped about 30% over 24 hours and has gained around 58% over the past seven days.
• Grayscale filed an amended registration statement for its Bitcoin Cash Trust, adding another regulated route for investors to gain BCH exposure.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) skyrocketed on Wednesday morning after CME Group announced that it plans to launch Bitcoin Cash futures next month, if approved.  

Bitcoin Cash was created from a hard fork of the existing Bitcoin blockchain. Like Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash has a maximum supply of 21 million coins. Bitcoin Cash’s price traded over $351, up over 30% over the past 24 hours, while Bitcoin’s price slipped below $86,000, trading flat over the past 24 hours. 

Bitcoin Cash trading volume reached a one-month high, rising over 1.5 times since August 21, from $1.47 billion to $2.13 billion, according to Coinglass data. Over the past day, the token’s trading volume stood at $1.8 billion. 

The rally triggered a flurry of fresh bets in the derivatives market. BCH open interest increased to around $600 million from approximately $350 million a few days before, data from CoinGlass showed. That is the highest level since May.