Bitcoin surged to new all-time high today after an announcement from the CME about BTC futures coming this year. Earlier we hit $6,435 dollars per coin and we are currently quoted just slightly off the highs at $6,424.
Bitcoin Surges on CME Futures
Bitcoin surged to new highs today after the CME declared their intention to launch new BTC futures this year. The move comes just 2 months after their rival CBOE made a similar announcement. If approved by regulators, the futures will come in Q4 of 2017 for CME and probably early in 2018 for the CBOE.
Regulated futures open up bitcoin investment to more institutional money and could potentially lead to an approval of a BTC ETF in the future. In a prior decision this year the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission denied several bitcoin ETFs. The cited reason back then was the large volume of trading overseas and the lack of information sharing agreements between these trading venues and US exchanges.
Back to the charts! With the help of the CME news, we hit new highs today. Naturally, the rally is still in place. To end it, the bears will have to push us below the $5,355 swing lows. Support below here can be found at the $5,147 swing low and the $5,000 round figure. You can see more important levels on the chart above. On the long-term charts (both weekly and monthly) BTC/USD is still in rally mode.
Litecoin Stays Flat
While naturally helped by bitcoin gains, LTC/USD stayed flat today. Part of the reason could be traders positioning themselves for the next bitcoin fork on November 16th. In the two prior forks, we saw a rush of money away from alts and into BTC.
As can you see on the picture above, Litecoin has been trading mostly flat for the past two weeks. A break below the $51.11 swing low is needed to put a definitive end to the current uptrend. Just below here we find strong support at the $50 round figure. A decisive breakdown below here could start a new downtrend. On the weekly charts, LTC/USD remains range-bound but the monthly is still looking bullish.
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