[dajohnson89]

since the futures are cash settled, is it really possible for there to be such a tight correlation?

also, I surmise that a major factor in the correction we've witnessed in the past month or so has been the congested mempool (high fees and slow tx times).

[gtcode]

Yes, the futures price settles daily based on the reference rate. Eventually such correlations become more efficient once you have a real market. (As another poster pointed out it's still thin).