CME Group CEO Terry Duffy said futures contracts pegged to bitcoin on its exchange could be ready as soon as the second week of December. The CME boss made his comments during a Monday interview on CNBC, where he also discussed the inherent volatility in the worlds’ No. 1 digital currency, which has seen its value soar in value in 2017, fueling outsize interest from average investors and Wall Street players alike. Bitcoin has soared more than 500% year to date, compared with a roughly 15% climb for the S&P 500 index , an 18% rally for the Dow Jones Industrial Average , so far in 2017, and a nearly 26% return for the Nasdaq Composite Index over the same period. The CME kicked off a product to reference bitcoin prices a year ago, and late last month announced a plans to launch futures contracts, which could pave the way for investment funds and other investors to make big bets on the vagaries of the popular, and very volatile, cybercurrency.
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