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> This should give the big Wall St banks the ability to muck with crypto prices however they choose,

The current status quo is that large bitcoin holders can muck with crypto prices however they choose.

Futures exchanges will have to buy large sums of underlying assets (one reason for the recent spike.) So, in the end a lot of exchanges will be some of the largest crypto holders.

The currently proposed CME and CBOE futures are cash settled. No actual bitcoin is involved. Neither the buyers or sellers of the futures, nor any other entities involved, will need to buy/sell/hold any bitcoin.

The futures are cash settled, none of the futures exchanges need to own any bitcoin at all.

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