BitMEX To Launch an XRP/USD Perpetual Swap Contract With 50x Leverage

Leading cryptocurrency derivatives provider, BitMEX, will according to a Tuesday announcement, launch a new derivative product based on XRP, adding to the existing XRP futures contract and indices offered by the exchange platform.

BitMEX is rolling out trading of a new perpetual swap based on the XRP token (XRPUSD) with 50x leverage according to information made available on their website.  Trading on the derivative product expected to begin on 5 February 2020.

A perpetual contract is a derivative product that slightly differs from traditional futures contracts in the sense that there is no expiry or settlement. Perpetual swap contracts closely use the same model as the margin-based spot market and thus trades close to the referenced Index price instead of significantly different prices.

BitMEX CEO, Arthur Hayes, however, shared the news in a rather bizarre fashion, perhaps soothing the random opinions that different folks have about XRP, the cryptocurrency released by fintech-firm Ripple.

Is it called Ripple, XRP, or dogshit? Who knows, who cares. It’s worth more than zero so it’s time to trade the USD pair on BitMEX. Boo-Yaka-sha! https://t.co/pa3T5vd5kl

— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) February 4, 2020

Meanwhile, news of BitMEX listing a perpetual contract for XRP comes less than a day after, Lisa Song Sutton, a 4th Nevada Congressional District aspirant revealed that she was looking into adding the cryptocurrency to her portfolio.

XRP, at the time of writing, was trading at $0.25 per coin with a market cap of just under $11 billion.

Although XRP, as shown in the chart above, had started the day with a price uptrend, that move was reversed following a fresh movement of large funds (appr. $177 million) to and from Ripple’s escrow wallet.