Here’s what bitcoin futures could mean for the price of bitcoin

Grey Dwyer, BitMEX head of business development, talks with Business Insider executive editor Sara Silverstein about how futures contracts are going to impact the bitcoin community. Following is a transcript of the video.

Greg Dwyer: I'm Greg Dwyer. I'm the head of business development at BitMEX, Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange. I'm here to talk to you about how bitcoin futures contracts are going to impact a bitcoin community.

Sara Silverstein: Explain to me how all of this institutional money coming in to the futures market — which is not the same as it going into the bitcoin market — how is that going to impact bitcoin?

Dwyer: Bitcoin now trades, pretty much, on unregulated markets. The fact that it's going to start trading on the CME and CFE brings an air of legitimacy to the space, because it's going to bring in mainstream and professional investors, and have them be more comfortable participating in the futures market which is more regulated.

This is a big endorsement for the digital currency trading space. We could see more flows come into it and also, not only that, but futures help dampen and reduce the volatility of the price. So, this could help stabilize bitcoin as an asset class. And basically increase the utility function of it as a source of economic — as a method of economic transactions. Now, looking at the current market cap of bitcoin as going to $300 billion, with more institutional money coming in we could see market caps go up to $500 billion, which could — or even $1 trillion — which could increase the price of bitcoin from now $15,000 up to $20,000, $25,000, or even $50,000.

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