Bitcoin futures to arrive by the end of the year

Wall Street can’t ignore bitcoin any longer.

The digital currency, which has surged 569 percent this year, took a big step toward the investing mainstream on Tuesday when CME Group, the operator of the world’s biggest exchange, said it would allow trading of bitcoin futures by the end of the year.

The news sent bitcoin surging by 4.8 percent, or $292.22, to $6,379.70 by early afternoon.

“This is indeed huge news and it’s driven by higher bitcoin adoption rates by both the general public and institutions,” Marc van der Chijs, managing partner at CrossPacific Capital and a bitcoin investor, told The Post.

“With futures in place it will open the flood gates for institutions to come in — they were asking for it,” he added.

The move by CME amounts to the first major Wall Street institution throwing its weight behind bitcoin, which has been derided by skeptics as a fad and a bubble.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, on Sept. 12 called bitcoin a “fraud,” when the price was around $4,250. He walked back his comments a month later during a quarterly conference call — just as it was breaking through the $5,000 mark.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has signaled that he is more open to throwing the resources of his bank behind digital currencies.

“Still thinking about #Bitcoin. No conclusion – not endorsing/rejecting. Know that folks also were skeptical when paper money displaced gold,” Blankfein tweeted on Oct. 3.

Before the financial crisis, Wall Street banks were often on the bleeding edge of financial innovation — creating synthetic securities and exotic derivatives that were used widely, but also accelerated the pace of the 2008 financial crisis.

Since President Obama signed the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, banks and investors have been more cautious, opening the door for Silicon Valley engineers to make the new, new thing.

CME is an exchange for futures contracts, which are typically used to bet on price movements of commodities like oil and gold.

The decision is an about-face for CME, which tried last month to tamp down speculation that it would allow trading of the futures contracts.

“I really don’t see us going forward with a futures contract in the very near future,” CME President Bryan Durkin told Bloomberg Television last month.

But demand has spiked for bitcoin, as more than 100 hedge funds investing in it and similar digital currencies have emerged during the last few years.

“Given increasing client interest in the evolving cryptocurrency markets, we have decided to introduce a bitcoin futures contract,” Terry Duffy, CME’s CEO, said in a statement.