Risk Structure and Optimal Hedging of Bitcoin Inverse Futures

Abstract

In the Bitcoin futures markets, the dominating contracts are inverse contracts. Unlike standard futures, Bitcoin inverse futures have a non-linear payoff structure, are settled in Bitcoin instead of the fiat currency, and require Bitcoins to be deposited into the margin account during trading.

We characterize the unique high-order risk factors, asymmetry effect and (de)leverage effect of Bitcoin inverse futures, and obtain optimal hedging strategies in closed forms for both short and long hedges under the minimum-variance framework. We use the market data of Bitcoin spot and futures to conduct empirical studies. Our findings show that the optimal hedging strategies of Bitcoin inverse futures achieve superior hedging performance across exchanges.

Keywords: Bitcoin, Inverse futures, Minimum-variance hedging, High-order risk

JEL Classification: G110, G320