CME To Bring Ethereum Futures For Traders
- CME Group, which consists of the Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, New York Mercantile Exchange, and the Commodity Exchange, has decided to integrate Ethereum futures, pending regulatory review.
- CME Group offers clients the ability to trade futures, options, cash, and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data.
As The Merge’s anticipated date comes closer, several big names are coming forward to adopt its features. Recently, the world’s largest derivatives marketplace, CME Group, has decided to integrate Ethereum futures, pending regulatory review.
CME Group, which consists of the Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, New York Mercantile Exchange, and the Commodity Exchange, announced on Thursday that it will be offering options on Ethereum futures from September 12.
According to the company, the new Ethereum contracts, which deliver one ETH futures sized at 50 ETH per contract, will expand the company’s existing suite of crypto derivatives offerings, including Micro-sized Bitcoin options and Ethereum options.
Institutions are constantly expanding their range of crypto derivative products. As the largest derivatives marketplace in the world, CME Group offers clients the ability to trade futures, options, cash, and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data, enabling market participants around the world to effectively manage risk and capitalize on opportunities.
Global Head of Equity and FX Products at CME Group,Tim McCourt believes that the launch of these new options contracts will boost the growth and deep liquidity of the CME’s existing ETH futures.
“As we approach the highly anticipated Ethereum Merge next month, we continue to see market participants turn to CME Group to manage ether price risk. Our new Ether options will offer a wide array of clients greater flexibility and added precision to manage their ether exposure ahead of market moving events,” he continued.
Tremendous growth of existing derivatives
Notably, the already existing Ethereum options contract offerings have become popular products bringing “consistent liquidity, volume, and open interest for clients.” The open interest in Micro Ethereum futures alone surged by 34% in the second quarter of 2022. Moreover, the company’s existing ETH futures have already traded over 1.8 million contracts till date, according to the announcement.
TP ICAP welcomes
Leading market infrastructure provider TP ICAP, which completed its first trade on crypto asset equity instruments with Goldman Sachs, also commented on the new launch and displayed support to CME Group. Digital Assets Head of Brokering at TP ICAP, Sam Newman, revealed that the TP ICAP customers are eagerly waiting for the upcoming larger-sized Ether option. He added:
“With the upcoming Ethereum protocol merge, we expect this new contract to see significant interest from both our traditional customers as well as crypto native clients.”The widely anticipated “The Merge,” as it is informally called in the crypto industry, will see Ethereum switch from a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism to Proof-of-Stake. The Merge is expected to, among other things, cut the network’s energy consumption by 99% and reduce ETH token emissions by 90%. Notably, as BitcoinWisdom reported, the developers are expecting to launch the event on September 15, as Ethereum recently completed its final test run.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
