After TRUMP, FTX exchange adds futures contracts for Bernie Sanders (BERNIE), Joe Biden (BIDEN), Mike Bloomberg (BLOOMBERG), Pete Buttigieg (PETE) and Elizabeth Warren (WARREN)

By Tsunami On Feb 10, 2020

Few days ago, crypto-derivatives exchange FTX has made an announcement to launch a new futures contract for traders to speculate on much-hyped US Presidential election in 2020, where Donald Trump’s victory would be gambled on.

Mike Bloomberg, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders

TRUMP-2020 (TRUMP) is the first futures contract on FTX, where it (TRUMP) expires to $1 if Donald Trump wins the 2020 US presidential general election, and $0 otherwise.

Well, FTX clients are now facilitated to trade ‘TRUMP-2020’ (TRUMP) futures contracts as the risk calculations for the contract are based on a “risk price” of $5 per contract, as per the official announcement.

Today, FTX has added five more futures contracts for other U.S. presidential candidates.

We added a few friends so https://t.co/iyHg3xjsPl doesn’t get lonely!https://t.co/LSj33xKd6F https://t.co/yYA2ddttug https://t.co/dhzK5By5Hc https://t.co/TX6vkW7D6F https://t.co/Sw5TwEDfrp #trump #bernie #Biden #Bloomberg #pete #warren pic.twitter.com/GnoyU4FVoB

— FTX – Built By Traders, For Traders (@FTX_Official) February 10, 2020

The new contracts cover Bernie Sanders (BERNIE), Joe Biden (BIDEN), Mike Bloomberg (BLOOMBERG), Pete Buttigieg (PETE) and Elizabeth Warren (WARREN). It means users can now further monetize their prediction of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results.

Like the TRUMP contract, all other five contracts will expire to $1 in the case the underlying candidate gets elected, else will settle to $0. Users can either go long or short on these contracts based on their predictions.

Open interest, or the number of open futures contracts, is highest for the TRUMP contract (297,763), followed by BERNIE (138,003) BLOOMBERG (114,211), BIDEN (111,075), WARREN (102,6) and PETE (33.8). In terms of dollar value, open interest for TRUMP is around $184,000, while for BERNIE (~$24,000), BLOOMBERG (~$7,500) and BIDEN ($7,200).

The TRUMP contract is currently trading at around $0.618, meaning users think there is a 61,8% chance of Trump winning the re-election. While from the five new contracts, WARREN has the least score, with 0.019% thinking she has a chance to win the elections.

FTX specifically restricts a number of countries, including the European Union, Hong Kong, and Canada. The use of the contract is even banned in the United States, the very location of the election that determines the ultimate value of the contract.

Crypto derivatives trading has expanded significantly over the past several years, with exchanges such as BitMEX, Binance Futures and OKEx posting significant trading volume for their Bitcoin futures trading products. Mainstream finance even jumped on the bandwagon with the CME Bitcoin futures trading launch in 2017, and its later options trading launch in 2020.

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