LONDON, April 13 (Reuters) - London Stock Exchange Group has teamed up with Global Futures and Options (GFO-X) to offer Britain's first regulated trading and clearing in bitcoin index futures and options derivatives, the companies said on Thursday.
GFO-X, which is licensed by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority, is a start-up platform aimed at global institutional investors who want to trade digital asset derivatives.
LSEG's Paris-based LCH SA clearing unit will introduce a new, segregated clearing service, DigitalAssetClear, for cash-settled dollar-denominated digital assets traded on GFO-X.
"GFO-X is taking the first steps to extracting efficiencies from new technologies within a traditional market structure, with the goal over time of delivering 24/7 trading to global regulated digital asset markets," GFO-X said in a statement.
Frank Soussan, head of LCH DigitalAssetClear, said bitcoin index futures and options are a rapidly growing asset class, with increasing interest among institutional investors.