Argentine Securities Commission Approves Regulation for Futures Contracts Based on ‘Bitcoin Index’

On April 11, 2023, the Argentine Securities and Exchange Commission (CNV) announced the approval of a set of rules regarding futures contracts based on the Matba Rofex Bitcoin Index, with trading and settlement in Argentine pesos and with no delivery of the underlying asset.

Matba Rofex is a market authorized by the CNV where different financial and agricultural reference indexes are calculated and published. It acts as a financial indicator reflecting the market price for a given amount of bitcoin[1] in Argentine pesos per bitcoin (BTC/ARS), available at the Argentine Price Suppliers.

Considering that the CNV does not control or supervise the price these price providers determine for bitcoin and seeing that it is necessary to ensure that investors carry out transactions with confidence and transparency, Matba Rofex is required to ensure that price providers have a valid contract with a payment service provider duly registered before the Argentine Central Bank.

Moreover, and considering the nature and features of the underlying asset (i.e., bitcoin), Matba Rofex must alert investors of the risks associated with this type of operations. The value of this futures contract derives, as with any futures contract, from the value of the underlying asset; in this case, from the market value of bitcoin: if the price of bitcoin falls, so does the price of this futures.

The CNV's announcement seems to entail that only qualified investors[2] would be able to enter into these contracts. To this day, it is not possible to determine whether common or non-qualified investors will be able to acquire these instruments.

The approval of the set of rules is a major breakthrough for the Argentinian financial sector, mainly because it will allow the acceptance of bitcoin in the Argentinian market. This type of futures contracts could pave the way for major institutional players to comfortably invest in crypto-assets and start developing new and innovative products within the CNV regulatory framework.