TeraExchange launched a swap based on the bitcoin virtual currency late last week and became the first to receive approval from a U.S. federal regulator for a financial product based on the the blockchain.
As noted by Reuters the derivative allows clients to protect the value of their bitcoin holdings by locking in a dollar value.
"For a merchant to take bitcoin, there wasn't until this product a regulated way for them to put on a hedge to manage the risk ... and now with this product they can," Christian Martin, who heads TeraExchange, told Reuters.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/09/12/bitcoin-cftc-idINKBN0H71HN20140912