CME Group Announces Jan. 13, 2020 Launch for Bitcoin Options

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Nov 12, 2019, 09:00 ET

CHICAGO, Nov. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced options on its Bitcoin futures contracts will be available for trading starting Jan. 13, 2020, pending regulatory review.

"Since the launch of our Bitcoin futures nearly two years ago, clients have expressed a growing interest in options as another way to hedge and trade in these markets," said Tim McCourt, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products. "We have worked closely with clients and the industry to establish a robust and increasingly liquid underlying futures market here at CME Group, and we believe Bitcoin options will now offer our customers greater precision and flexibility to manage their risk."

Market users have rapidly adopted Bitcoin futures since their December 2017 launch. Key highlights of how this market has grown include:

Average daily volume of 6,500+ contracts in 2019, equivalent to about 32,500 bitcoin
22 successful futures expiration settlements since launch
3,500+ individual accounts trading
47 percent of trading volume is from outside the U.S.

CME Group is the only derivatives marketplace where customers can hedge or trade benchmark options on futures across every investable asset class, with average daily options volume of 4.3 million contracts in 2019 to date.

Bitcoin options will be listed on and subject to the rules of CME. For more information, please visit http://www.cmegroup.com/bitcoinoptions.

For more information and educational resources related to options on futures, visit CME Institute.

As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. With a range of pre- and post-trade products and services underpinning the entire lifecycle of a trade, CME Group also offers optimization and reconciliation services through TriOptima, and trade processing services through Traiana.

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec, EBS, TriOptima, and Traiana are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD, EBS Group LTD, TriOptima AB, and Traiana, Inc., respectively. Dow Jones, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and S&P are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and S&P/Dow Jones Indices LLC, as the case may be, and have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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SOURCE CME Group