Don't necessarily see this as a sure sign that Bitcoin will rise. Futures inherently allow people (and big companies) to short the currency. There would be a lot of people out there who would love to earn money off of Bitcoin failing.
The futures is great for the longevity of the crypto-verse with this news. But also be cautious in the short term. We may see drops in Bitcoin due to lots of people wanting it to short the currency and dump because of it.
No doubt, but would anyone manipulate BTC price on a certain date just to win futures contracts? I assume that it's less risky to short without entering in futures as a person/company can exit a position at any time.
From my understanding a lot of the time short positions are opened up as a hedge against your initial investment. So if someone has a large investment in Bitcoin and also has a short position against it, then it isn't unreasonable to think that a co-ordinated dump could create sure-fire profits.
Great news. Just taking everything in the crypto-verse with a grain of salt :)