The website of Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) became unavailable on Sunday shortly after it launched bitcoin futures contracts for the first time.
According to an explanation the company posted on Twitter, the website crash was a result of heavy traffic.
“Visitors to cboe.com may find out that it is performing slower than usual and may at times be temporarily unavailable,” CBOE said.
CBOE however assured that trading on other exchanges continues as “intermittent website delays” will have no effect on the trading activity.
“Last night, CBOE XBT Bitcoin Futures commenced trading on the CBOE Futures Exchange,” said Russell Rhoads, from CBOE stated in a blog post on the company’s website. “The launch was smooth, although our website experienced some issues due to an overwhelming number of hits looking for the trading data.”
Initial futures contracts that traded in Chicago were on crops such as corn or wheat. Rhoads noted that farmers could use futures to lock in a selling price before they even planted their crops for the grown season.
“Bitcoin futures allow market participants the ability to lock in a selling price for bitcoin as of a future date,” Rhoads said.
Rhoads also noted that CBOE has witnessed an unprecedented volume of trading within three hours of launch.
“On the first day of trading at CBOE in 1973, 911 options (were) traded. First day of $VIX futures in 2004 saw 461 contracts traded. Three hours into the first bitcoin futures session and volume is just over 1,000 contracts,” Rhoads said.
