CME Group, one of the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplaces, today announced it will expand its crypto derivatives offerings with the introduction of Micro Ether futures on December 6th.
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.
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 (equal to about 33.8 million ETH) have traded. 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.
“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.”
For more information on Micro Ether futures (MET), click here.
