Crypto Exchange FTX Launches Lumber Futures After Just Two Hours of Work

(Bloomberg) -- Here’s a quintessential markets-in-2021 story. The crypto exchange FTX launched a lumber futures market.

You can see it here. It’s a cash-settled contract to the monthly reading of the Lumber & Wood Products Category of the Producer Price Index.

In a Twitter DM with Bloomberg, FTX founder (and recent guest on the Odd Lots podcast) Sam Bankman-Fried said putting together the contract took “about 12 hours lead time and about 2 hours of work.” And that requests for it started picking up among users in just the last day. That’s how quickly they were able to launch a new trading product.

Perhaps more importantly, he added, “I also like to do things like this once in a while just to prove to ourselves that we're still able to be nimble and responsive on short timescales.”

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