Russia’s main stock market, the St. Petersburg Exchange (SPB), currently hosts futures trading in contracts based on the value of Bitcoin and BRICS assets.
The exchange began preparing to offer its services this spring, shortly after the Bank of Russia authorized the offering of crypto derivatives to qualified investors.
Russian exchange progresses smoothly with plans to offer Bitcoin futures
The stock exchange in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, has started trading cash-settled futures for the stock market assets of other BRICS countries and the top cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Bitcoin.
“Futures on funds linked to stock indexes in Brazil, India, China and Saudi Arabia provide investors with access to the stock markets and economies of the BRICS member countries,” explained SPB CEO Evgeny Serdyukov.
According to a press release issued on Tuesday, the exchange’s CEO also emphasized that:
“Another unique instrument is the BTCUSD Index Futures, which tracks the performance of Bitcoin, the world’s most traded cryptocurrency.”
The contract is based on the BTCUSD index, which tracks the shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (exchange traded fund). Prices are in US dollars and payment currency is Russian rubles.
This type of product offering became possible after the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) issued a circular in May this year allowing financial companies to launch crypto derivatives on the domestic market.
Agreeing to this regulation has triggered a full-fledged race among existing market players, including Russia’s largest stock trading venue, the Moscow Exchange (MOEX), to present such options to investors.
MOEX will begin trading Bitcoin futures in early June, and also plans to begin calculating its own Bitcoin index and issuing contracts for it.
In July, Russia’s leading stock exchange announced that it would begin trading futures on Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
All of these are currently only available to “highly qualified” investors. These investors include legal entities and individuals who meet certain capital requirements.
For individuals, this means proving bank deposits and securities investments of more than 100 million rubles ($1.2 million or more) or annual income of at least 50 million rubles ($600,000) in the past year.
Criteria for achieving “super elite” status, which the Russian press often refers to as these investors, also include a sufficient level of education in the field.
Derivatives trading SPB using unique technology
The St. Petersburg exchange said in a futures announcement that it will employ in-house technology to support trading in crypto derivatives and will be able to add more contracts and options in the future.
Noting that there are currently around 5,000 underlying assets in the global derivatives market, the head of SPB commented:
“We have developed proprietary technology for trading derivative products and have significantly expanded the capabilities of SPB’s trading and clearing infrastructure.”
“SPB futures are all cash-settled, which eliminates infrastructure risks associated with delivery of the underlying assets,” Serdyukov said, as reported by Prime News.
Like similar products on the Russian market, these are only accessible to qualified investors. A press release posted on the platform’s website reveals that trading in other newly launched futures will be available to non-accredited investors.
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