Futures trading brings bitcoin into mainstream

The intersection of digital money and traditional finance is at 400 South LaSalle Street in Chicago this weekend. That’s where trading in bitcoin futures opens Sunday evening, as the first major US exchange offers a product pegged to the wildly fluctuating cryptocurrency.

The currency has risen more than 1,500 per cent this year, and about 85 per cent just in the past two weeks, driven largely by demand from individual investors. But even as bitcoin — launched in 2009 as an alternative to banks — divides Wall Street executives and central bankers worldwide, those kinds of gains are a powerful magnet.

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