itBit and ED&F Man Capital Markets Inc. Execute First Exchange for Physical Transaction Settled Using Bitcoin

We are excited to announce that, together with our partners at EDF Man Capital Markets Inc., itBit has completed the first “Exchange for Physical” (EFP) Bitcoin transaction on behalf of two institutional investor clients.

This is the first time an EFP transaction has been reported to a U.S. futures exchange where the underlying “physical asset” was a digital currency. This transaction marks a milestone for mainstream markets’ adoption of digital currencies.

Since the launch of Bitcoin futures late last year, the market has consisted only of “cash settled” contracts, meaning participants trade contracts that track the price of Bitcoin, but the contracts eventually settled in cash. The EFP trade is the first instrument to link the “physical” spot-exchange market to the futures market, which will likely lead to additional products linking the two markets. The trade is an important step towards connecting traditional institutional financial services products to the crypto asset space and progresses the development of institutional capital markets infrastructure of crypto as an asset class.

You can read more about this “Wall Street first” on CCN.

Originally published at www.itbit.com.