The futures options are expected to start trading on March 28. They will come more than two years after the CME Group launched a Bitcoin options trading product in January 2021.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group, a major derivatives marketplace, announced that it will launch options trading for its micro Bitcoin and Ether future products. In a March 1, 2022 announcement, the CME Group said that depending on regulatory review, it aims to launch options contracts for its current micro Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) futures that will be about 10% the size of their respective tokens.
The futures options, scheduled to start on March 28, will come around 24 months after the company launched a Bitcoin options trading product in January 2021 and over four years since the firm unleashed the first Bitcoin futures contract in December 2017.
Tim McCourt, the CME Group’s global head of equity and FX products, stated:
“Building on the strength and liquidity of the underlying contracts, our micro-sized options will enable traders of all sizes to efficiently hedge market-moving events with greater precision and flexibility or fine-tune their cryptocurrency market exposure.”
Meet the newest additions to the CME Group Cryptocurrency product lineup ‒ Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether options ‒ available for trading March 28. https://t.co/pPL9JRshkD
— CME Group (@CMEGroup) March 1, 2022
The micro Ether futures contract that CME unveiled in December 2021 is valued at 0.1 ETH. On the other hand, the Bitcoin futures contracts are sized at 0.1 BTC and have been trading since May 2021.
Based on a statement by the CME Group, the minimum block threshold for the options are 10 contracts for micro BTC and 100 for micro ETH. Genesis Global Trading, Akuna Capital, and Cumberland are expected to offer adequate liquidity for the cryptocurrency investment vehicles.
The announcement came after the price of Bitcoin gained over 15% from the $38,000 levels to a 7-day high of $44,816. In that context, the price of Ether experienced similar gains, moving to a 2-week high above $3,000, as highlighted by the available market data.
The price movement might be related, partially, to the financial effects of the Ukrainian war that has resulted in speculation that the Russian government may try to use digital assets to avoid sanctions.
