CME Group to launch Micro Ether Futures on December 6

By Edlyn Cardoza

CME Group, one of the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, recently announced it will expand its crypto derivatives offerings with the introduction of Micro Ether futures on December 6, pending regulatory review.

Sized at one-tenth of one ether, Micro Ether futures will provide an efficient, cost-effective way for a range of market participants – from institutions to sophisticated, active, individual traders – to hedge their spot ether price risk or more nimbly execute ether trading strategies, all while retaining the features and benefits of CME Group’s larger-sized Ether futures.

“Since the launch of Ether futures in February, we have seen steady growth in liquidity in these contracts, especially among institutional traders,” said Tim McCourt, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products. “At the same time, the price of ether has more than doubled since these contracts were introduced, creating demand for a micro-sized contract to make this market even more accessible to a broader range of participants. Micro Ether futures will offer even more choice and precision in how they trade Ether futures in a transparent, regulated and efficient manner at CME Group.”

Micro Ether futures will join CME Group’s growing suite of cryptocurrency derivatives, including recently launched Micro Bitcoin futures which have traded more than 2.7 million contracts since launched in May. Launch-to-date, more than 675,500 Ether futures contracts (equivalent to about 33.8 million ether) have traded.

In addition, Micro Ether futures will complement CME Group’s diverse slate of more than 20 Micro products, which, together, have traded more than 1 billion contracts since their introduction. The new contract will be cash-settled, based on the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate, which serves as a once-a-day reference rate of the U.S. dollar price of ether. Micro Ether futures will be listed on and subject to the rules of CME.

As the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group 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.

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