Futures also have an expiry date. I will be interested to see the spread between the physical price and these dates. In traditional futures markets, (exception for equity index futures,) this is reflected as a cost of carry (think buy physical oil now, sell the futures, and store oil for 6 months on a tanker). Even for equity indices there exists a dividends cash flow stream and a fiat currency interest rate. What is going to drive the futures prices? I've read some assumptions that it will be a long / short bias, but it remains to be seen how the longer dated months behave relative to near month and the spot market.