BitMEX said early Friday morning it plans to introduce futures markets for two cryptocurrencies, the first new coins to appear on the exchange in over two years.
The stalwart cryptocurrency derivatives exchange announced new futures markets for chainlink (LINK) and tezos (XTZ), two cryptocurrencies with triple-digit year-to-date returns, in addition to new contracts for eos (EOS) and cardano (ADA), two coins already traded in futures markets on BitMEX.
Tezos has traded on BitMEX before, however. Prior to the project’s initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017, XTZ/BTC futures were listed on BitMEX and settled at the sale price of 0.0002 BTC per tezos.
The last time BitMEX listed a new token was June 2018, when it announced a TRON/BTC futures market.
Shortly before that announcement, the exchange removed six altcoin futures markets, including ethereum classic (ETC), zcash (ZEC), and monero (XMR).
Notably, the new altcoin futures will trade against tether (USDT) instead of bitcoin (BTC). In Friday's announcement, BitMEX said the reason for this is because “USDT pairs account for over 60% of overall altcoin volume.” By listing tether pairs, “we are providing users with the trading options to better meet their needs,” BitMEX said.
More details are to come later Friday, the Seychelles-based exchange said.