After all this time I still haven't fully bothered to wrap my head around its implications.

Speaking as a thicko, all along I've sensed an underlying desire from many to defer to what they think is a higher authority. If that is the case some will look to futures to tell them where to head because it's more 'legit'. In an ideal world the real Bitcoin market would totally ignore a cash settled futures market. It contributes nothing. It achieves nothing. It basically is nothing.

Unlike almost everything else that has a futures market, BTC can be physically delivered and verified within minutes by anyone, anywhere at any time. I'll guess many a futures market exists to create a market from scratch off the back of something effectively intangible that everyone knows is nothing but pure nothingness from the bottom up. That will never be the case with crypto.

I guess that might mean futures traders will increasingly fuck with the real market, but in the meantime that's what we're seeing with Bitmex already. For the last few months it's seemed like the spot markets only exist to be raped so people can rape others on Bitmex.

Conclusion - mainly dunno. Real adoption and real demand and real use by real people would reduce speculation and the tail wagging the dog.