Bitcoin (BTC) holders now accept a new tool to leverage the largest cryptocurrency's growing ecosystem equally two new futures markets get live.

In a blog post on May 15, derivatives platform FTX confirmed it had launched a futures product which tracks not Bitcoin's price, merely hash rate.

FTX takes on first Bitcoin hash rate futures

Simply dubbed "hashrate futures," the contracts track the average difficulty of the Bitcoin network each day from the outset to the cease of each quarter.

The difficulty is used, not hash charge per unit, considering as FTX notes, measuring hash rate accurately is impossible.

"However, given that difficulty adjustments effort to maintain 10m cake times, over long periods of time the average hashrate will be proportional to the boilerplate difficulty," the web log post explains.

So that means that, roughly speaking, difficulty futures should conduct similarly to hashrate futures.

Hash charge per unit refers to the computing power dedicated to the Bitcoin network at a given time. The more hashing power there is, the stronger and more secure the network.

The mining difficulty is an expression of how circuitous it is to solve equations, which validate Bitcoin transactions.

Bitcoin 7-day average hash rate 1-month chart

Bitcoin 7-twenty-four hours boilerplate hash rate 1-calendar month chart. Source: Blockchain

Both were hovering nearly all-time highs, only the hash rate tailed off following Bitcoin's block subsidy halving this week. At press fourth dimension, however, FTX'south hash charge per unit product was outperforming, with Q1 2022 contracts climbing from a value of around 16 to 21.5 on the day.

Contracts due to elapse in Q3 and Q4 2022 rose by vi% and 13% respectively.

The contract value is calculated using the difficulty on a certain day, dividing the figure by i trillion to go far at a 2-effigy number.

Bitfinex leverages ascension BTC market cap

FTX joins cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in expanding the futures market place. Last week, the platform unleashed futures related to Bitcoin's dominance versus altcoins.

That relationship is also undergoing a change in favor of BTC, which at present accounts for 67.4% of the cryptocurrency market place according to information from CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin has managed to maintain at least sixty% potency since July concluding year.

At the same time, commentators annotation citing data, the amount of Bitcoin held on exchanges is falling, something they theorize tends to better price functioning.