Yesterday saw the launch of Bitcoin futures with the CBOE, and it traded at a premium of over 13% compared to the spot at one point
And that's the January futures, which is a month away from settlement. Yet, the premium that's factored into the futures is way more than most (if not, any) other product offered by the CBOE.
You can pin that down to the volatile nature of Bitcoin itself, which promotes an even bigger arbitrage premium/discount - but surely at some point you'll have to draw the line and say this is too big of a gap not to act on.
According to CBOE CEO, Edward Tilly, "arbitrage will close the gap between the futures and spot, but it won't be in the 12 hours of trading we've seen so far". He added that it may take "days or even weeks", when he spoke with Bloomberg TV yesterday.
And that sentiment is being shared across the market as well. With more liquidity, and more contracts traded, there should be less discrepancy between the futures and the underlying. Currently there's only a couple thousand contracts traded, and that's not a very good sample size to consider when the market could potentially be massive.
But Bloomberg also highlights that this whole futures thing could just be another betting market for gamblers, since it is cash-settled (buyers get cash, not Bitcoin when the contracts expire).
So, that's something to consider as well.
But with any market, the promotion of liquidity rightfully should help with price discovery and "fair value" pricing. Let's see if it applies to Bitcoin futures as well.
