The North American Derivatives Exchange (Nadex) has revealed that it submitted an emergency notice to the CFTC on Tuesday that it halted trading in its Weekly and Daily Bitcoin Binary contracts. Nadex explains that this was done due to the unavailability of the underlying Tera Bitcoin Price Index market upon which its bitcoin contracts are based.
The notice specifies that no additional Daily Bitcoin contracts will be listed on the exchange until further notice. However, Nadex says that it plans to resume trading in the Weekly Bitcoin contracts when the Tera Bitcoin Price Index becomes available. Unfortunately, no indication was given from any of the sides as to when that might actually occur.
The CFTC-regulated exchange was the first to announce that it will offer binary options contracts on bitcoin prices back in November 2014. Nadex thus pioneered legal bitcoin investments as a product for U.S. retail binary options investors, while it was previously only available to institutional players. At the time, the company said the launch is in response to rising demand from customers.
The selection of the TeraBit index was the only option for Nadex, as it was the only bitcoin price index calculated by a CFTC regulated company at the time. Since than TeraExchange has somewhat fallen out of favor with the CFTC as in September 2015 the regulator charged it for failing to enforce prohibitions against circular trading schemes. The charges by the CFTC against Tera were simultaneously settled, with the regulator requiring that the platform cease and desist from any future violations.
