CME Group in Chicago, one of the world’s biggest derivatives marketplaces, says it’s going to be expanding its Ethereum and bitcoin-based options across both standard and micro-sized contracts.
CME Group to Establish All-Day Bitcoin Contract Trading
The news comes right as several other Ethereum and bitcoin-focused contracts are reaching their expirations now in late May. Through these new contracts, expiries are set to be available every day from Monday through Friday of each week. In a statement, Giovanni Vicioso – the CME Group global head of cryptocurrency products – said:
We are pleased to offer these new options contracts to provide market participants with greater precision and versatility in managing short-term bitcoin and ether price risk. Against a backdrop of heightened market volatility in the digital asset sector, we continue to see clients turn to a trusted, regulated venue like CME Group for reliable and efficient cryptocurrency risk management products.
Previously, the CME Group only offered contracts that expired on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. However, these additions will ensure that contracts ending on Tuesdays and Thursdays will also be available to traders, meaning all present contracts will complement each other in the general scope of how the platform works.
Paul Eisma – head of options trading at XBTO – also threw his two cents into the mix, commenting:
CME Group continues to innovate and lead in the institutional crypto options on [the] futures market. By completing the short end of the implied volatility surface with the addition of the new Tuesday [and] Thursday micro-options contracts and weekly standard-size contracts, institutional market makers such as XBTO can deliver precise liquidity to market participants of all sizes who trade and hedge cryptocurrency exposures spanning every business day of the upcoming week for the first time.
There’s plenty of good news for the CME Group arising as of late. Some of the biggest news circles around the fact that the company has achieved a record daily average national rate of more than $3 billion, suggesting that more and more individuals are seeing bitcoin and Ethereum as valid tools and additions to their portfolios.
In addition, Q1 of 2023 saw more than 11,000 contracts, while open interest averaged more than 24,000 contracts. March 22 also saw a record high in bitcoin contracts traded on the platform (a total of more than 2,300), while open interest reached a high of 14,700 contracts at the end of March.
Boosting the Crypto Space Like Never Before
The last major news to emerge regarding CME Group came about well over a year ago when it was announced the firm was going to be partnering with CF Benchmarks as a means of unveiling approximately 11 new crypto reference rates.
The rates were set to apply not to futures products, but to crypto networks like Litecoin, Cosmos, Polygon, Stellar Lumens, and Solana.
