The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has granted Chicago-based ErisX the regulatory approval to expand its clearinghouse capabilities to clear all futures and swaps.
ErisX, which is backed by US brokerage TD Ameritrade, has been granted two different regulatory designations, a derivatives clearing license and a designated contract market (DCM) license. But, before today’s greenlight from the CFTC, it was only allowed to clear virtual currency futures contracts, which are listed for trading on Eris Clearing’s affiliate, Eris Exchange.
While its contracts vie with the Bakkt’s futures in trading physically delivered Bitcoin, ErisX was the first digital asset exchange to offer both spot and futures markets on the same platform.
Further, the three-year startup has made its products available via US brokers licensed as futures commission merchants (FCMs). It has recently onboarded TradeStation Crypto to expand the breadth of accessible Liquidity available to the latter’s customers. Moreover, it plans to onboard market makers, trading firms and deep-pocket traders to benefit from expanding capabilities of its clearinghouse to all other commodities.
“Our clearinghouse platform, composed of our TCS™ technology and DCO license, now possesses several important distinctions and capabilities not featured with all DCOs,” said Thomas Chippas, CEO of ErisX.
Additionally, ErisX launched its own physically-settled Ether futures contracts, meaning investors receive real cryptocurrency and not the cash equivalent. The move came shortly after the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) granted its first BitLicense of this year to ErisX.
ErisX was among four regulated trading platforms in the US vying to become the first to launch physically-delivered bitcoin futures. Earlier last year, the firm concluded a funding round raising more than $27 million from major financial institutions like Bitmain, ConsenSys, Fidelity Investments, and Nasdaq Ventures.
“We are pleased to be able to offer clearing services to other DCMs and, alternatively, to list third party contracts on Eris Exchange with the ability to clear those contracts at Eris Clearing,” said Laurian Cristea, General Counsel at ErisX.
He continued: “Our Trading Platform is a high throughput, deterministic, low latency matching engine hosted in a world class data center. Similarly, our clearing system is a reliable, web-based clearing engine designed to meet institutional requirements and with real-time segregation balances no other DCO can boast.”
