Should Bitcoin Have Trading Halts or Circuit Breakers?

October 19, 1987. Better known as Black Monday, it was the worst market crash in US history since Black Tuesday on October 29, 1929, which triggered the Great Depression. On Black Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.6%, while S&P 500 futures contracts plummeted 29%.

With trading volumes sky-high and systems overwhelmed all over the world in October 1987, a solution was finally put in place known as “trading halts,” which basically acted as circuit breakers to stop trading. To this day, the SEC regulates market-wide trading halts, although an individual market, even an individual stock, can trigger its own freeze.

Trading halts can stop trading for 15 minutes and, in severe instances, can close trading for the day.

On March 12, 2020, the stock market plunged severely due to the global pandemic, triggering a Level 1 halt.

While the traditional financial markets have a system in place — what about cryptocurrency? Bitcoin has experienced some major mood swings in response to economic uncertainty, but will investors welcome regulatory action in their decentralized market?

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