CME Group to Launch Micro Euro-denominated Bitcoin and Ether Futures on March 18

News provided by

Feb 20, 2024, 07:00 ET

CHICAGO, Feb. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced it plans to further expand its cryptocurrency derivatives offering with the addition of Micro Bitcoin Euro and Micro Ether Euro futures on March 18, pending regulatory review.

"Global investors have sought more precise tools to manage their risk as interest for bitcoin and ether grows. As such, we have seen a four-fold increase in volume in our USD-denominated Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether futures," said Giovanni Vicioso, Global Head of Cryptocurrency Products at CME Group. "The launch of these new Micro Euro-denominated contracts will provide clients with additional products to more efficiently hedge bitcoin and ether exposure in the second-highest traded fiat behind U.S. dollar-based contracts. Year-to-date, 24% of Bitcoin and Ether futures volume at CME Group has been transacted from the EMEA region, and we continue to develop additional tools for clients there to hedge their crypto portfolios and express or take a view on potential market moves."

Designed to match their U.S. dollar-denominated counterparts, Micro Bitcoin Euro and Micro Ether Euro futures contracts will be sized at one-tenth of their respective underlying cryptocurrencies. These new futures contracts will be listed on and subject to the rules of CME.

"TP ICAP will support this market-defining crypto derivative from CME Group by providing block facilitation services to this product. Our global Digital Assets business has been providing price discovery and execution services on CME Group's suite of crypto derivatives since the start of 2020, leveraging TP ICAP's strengths in connecting market participants as the foundation for our Digital Assets proposition," said Sam Newman, Digital Assets Head of Broking at TP ICAP. "Interest in crypto derivatives has seen huge worldwide growth in recent years and these new euro-denominated micro futures contracts will help further expand the accessibility and utility of crypto derivatives, particularly within Europe."

CME Group's Cryptocurrency product suite continues to provide consistent liquidity, volume, and open interest for clients seeking to hedge their risk or gain exposure to the asset class. January was a record month in terms of average daily volume (71K contracts) across all Cryptocurrency products. In addition, average daily open interest for Bitcoin and Ether futures reached all-time highs for the month (23.5K contracts and 6K contracts, respectively). Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether futures also saw a trading surge, with average daily volumes growing 43% versus December 2023.

For more information on this product, please visit www.cmegroup.com/microeuro.

As the world's leading 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.

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 is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CME-G

SOURCE CME Group