Cryptocurrency prices rose on Monday in Asia after reports that Bakkt, a subsidiary of the Intercontinental Exchange, was given the go signal from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to launch Bitcoin futures next month.
Bakkt said it planned to launch Bitcoin futures on Sept. 23. The potential of the futures was cited as one of the main drivers of crypto’s rally this year.
Bitcoin rose 2.7% to $10,401.8 by 12:01 AM ET (04:01 GMT). Despite the gains today, the world’s largest digital asset plunged about 15% last week, recording the biggest five-day slide since November.
“People thought at certain points in the last year or so that cryptocurrencies would become the flight to safety trade,” said Matt Maley, an equity strategist at Miller Tabak, in a Bloomberg report.
“The cryptocurrency is losing some of that luster of being considered a safe asset.”
Etherium jumped 6.3%, while XRP and Litecoin also soared 8.5% and 6.2% respectively.
In other news, an emergence of Facebook’s proposed coin, Libra, made headlines today. A group of lawmakers from the U.S. are reportedly set to discuss the cryptocurrency in Switzerland in the coming days.
The group will be arranging a meeting with Adrian Lobsiger , the Swiss Federal Protection and Information Commissioner and will be led by Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the House of Financial Services Committee.
Waters previously stated that Facebook would “wield immense power that could disrupt” governments and central banks and compared the social media giant to Equifax, a highly criticized and scandal ridden company that had caused harm to its consumers.
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