FTX launches a new, unique futures product

FTX once again made the headlines thanks to yet another new futures product. Recently, we reported that FTX launched crude oil futures, and now, the rising derivatives platform proved just how innovative it can really be.

Bitcoin price is volatile — that is something that even those who don’t even know what Bitcoin is known by now. This made Bitcoin futures that tracked its price rather popular among investors.

However, according to FTX’s new blog post published today, May 15th, the platform is offering a Bitcoin-related alternative. The new product comes in the form of a tool that leverages the largest’ coin’s hash rate, instead of focusing on its price. As a result, Bitcoin hashrate-based futures are coming for the first time on any derivatives exchange.

FTX admits to not actually measuring hash rate

The new contracts are simply called ‘hashrate futures,’ and they will track the Bitcoin network difficulty on a daily basis. Not only that, but they will follow the difficulty’s advancement from one quarter to another.

FTX commented on this by saying that it decided to use difficulty, rather than the hash rate itself. After all, it is next to impossible to measure the hash rate with any real accuracy. “However, given that difficulty adjustments attempt to maintain 10m block times, over long periods of time the average hashrate will be proportional to the average difficulty,” the platform said.

In other words, hashrate futures and difficulty futures should behave in roughly the same way.

Of course, the hash rate and difficulty are not the same thing. Hash rate refers to the computing power that is used on the Bitcoin network at any given time. The mining difficulty, on the other hand, is a way to measure the complexity of equations that need solving. Both performed very well as Bitcoin halving approached, with the hash rate even hitting a new ATH.

It appears that FTX is more than serious when it comes to expanding its futures offering, which is also the truth for Bitfinex. The exchange recently released new futures that measure Bitcoin’s dominance over the altcoin market — another aspect of Bitcoin that seems to be in favor of the world’s largest crypto.