Bakkt will gain a lead on CME Group in the race to offer the first regulated options contract for bitcoin futures.

ICE, the parent company of the NYSE, is sponsoring Bakkt. Bakkt’s bitcoin options will launch on December 9, the exchange said in a blog post published Thursday. However, in contrast, CME has set a somewhat nebulous date for its options rollout – “early 2020, pending regulatory approval.”

Kelly Loeffler’s announcement

Simultaneously with the blog, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler also announced the fact during the CFTC Fintech Forward 2019 event. She was participating in a panel discussion on “Re-imagining Markets: What Digitization Means … for Transactions, Custody, and Markets.”

In the Medium post she clarified the bitcoin options were fully regulated. Further, they were designed to hedge or gain bitcoin exposure, generate income, and offer cost and capital efficiencies.

“Bakkt Bitcoin Futures have tight bid-ask spreads throughout U.S., European and Asian trading hours, and we continue to onboard new institutional and retail customers,” she wrote.

Bakkt launched in September this year. At the time Loeffler described the launch of the new futures as “the dawn of an asset class.”

Meanwhile, liquidity on the Bakkt exchange has been building up, and on October 23, volume touched a record 590 contracts of Bakkt Bitcoin Monthly Futures.

Proposed Bakkt’s Bitcoin options features

Moreover, key features of the new options contract are:

• Capital efficiency
• Cash or physical settlement
• European style option
• Attractive fees
• Broad distribution and liquidity
• Instant Messaging
• Block trades
• Options analytics

[Related Story: CME Group to Launch Bitcoin Options In 2020 ]