CME Group is “looking into” futures contracts for Solana or Cardano, a CME Group executive stated at a London conference.
A CME Group executive stated earlier this week that Solana and Cardano might soon have futures available on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Payal Shah, CME’s director of equity products and cryptocurrency products, spoke at CryptoCompare’s Digital Asset Summit in London.
When asked by CME if they were considering offering altcoin futures or other derivative products, she replied “We’re looking into it.” We get many client requests for anything other than the top two (Solana and Cardano).
They’re still considered “altcoins” because they aren’t Bitcoin or Ether, but SOL and ADA have consolidated their positions in the top 10 market capital. SOL was sixth largest coin, with a market capital of $44.3 billion, and ADA was eighth with a market cap of $39.5 billion.
Particularly Solana has experienced a lot growth. It was the best-performing coin in 2021, rising from $1.84 at its beginning to $178.26 by December 15.
Shah stated that although there is a lot of interest, CME will need to address two major challenges before it offers futures contracts for SOL and ADA.
The exchange’s futures contracts are converted to an index when they depend on five different price exchanges. If one of these exchanges goes down, they have an exact price and can still settle their futures.
Another concern is regulatory. She stated that it was important to know where the paperwork should be sent.
CME’s Bitcoin and Ethereum products are in high demand. Last week, the commodities exchange started offering micro Bitcoin and micro Ether futures options. This micro allows traders to buy derivatives contracts at increments of 1/10th the price of Bitcoin or Ethereum.
The use of crypto derivatives products like Bitcoin futures allows investors to speculate on the price of an asset without having to hold it. They are used by investors to speculate on the price movement of an asset and to hedge against its volatility.
Spot market deals with the delivery and price of assets in real time. If Bitcoin hits a certain price, there is no way to purchase a contract. The transaction is completed immediately.
“We are off to a great start. The screens are lit. Shah stated that we’ve had some really great trades.” “And to clarify that, we launched the micro Bitcoin futures contract in May last year and have already executed close to 5,000,000 contracts.”
The initial Bitcoin futures contract of the group has also seen significant growth.
She said that in the short time (just over four years) since we launched our first futures contract, the standard Bitcoin Future with five-time multiplier and we have seen it grow from doing 1,000 contracts per day to now doing 10,000 each day. This growth is amazing.
The crypto derivatives market is receiving a lot more attention than CME. Crypto.com and FTX have all made efforts to cater to derivatives traders over the past year.
