We are proud to announce the launch of the world’s first Bitcoin 30 Day Historical Volatility Futures Contract (BVOL). The product will allow traders to speculate on the 30 day historical volatility of Bitcoin / USD as observed on Bitfinex. Traders will now be able to profit on the increase or decrease of Bitcoin price volatility without taking a position in the exchange rate.
Wikipedia defines volatility as, “a measure for variation of price of a financial instrument over time. Historic volatility is derived from time series of past market prices.” BitMEX has constructed a 30 day historical volatility index by taking the daily 10:00 GMT – 12:00 GMT 1 minute Time Weighted Average Price (TWAP) for Bitcoin / USD on Bitfinex. Each daily index value represents the realised volatility over the past 30 days. The futures contract on settlement day will equal the index value on that day.
The futures contracts have the symbol BVOL and expire on the last Friday of every calendar month at 12:00 GMT. The contract is quoted in annualised volatility % points. A futures price of 50.00 corresponds to an annualised volatility of 50.00%. For each 1% point movement, traders stand to make or lose 0.01 Bitcoin.
The futures contracts will be margined the same as all other BitMEX futures contracts. Initially up to 5x leverage will be allowed on this product. Margin, profit, and loss are all denominated in Bitcoin. As the liquidity grows, we will gradually increase leverage on this product.