CME Group will launch Ethereum futures in February 2021

CME Group, the world's largest derivatives exchange, announced the launch of futurescontracts on Ethereum for institutional traders.

This way, big players will be able to investinto the second largest cryptocurrency through regulated instruments. The company announced that it has received regulatory approval and is ready to begin trading Ether futures from February 2021.

CME bets on cryptocurrency

This is CME's second attempt to make money from cryptocurrency futures trading. In 2019, Bitcoin futures brought in $5 billion in revenue for the company.

Cryptocurrency traders, how bitcoin peakedin 2017, exactly on the day when trading with these instruments started. Immediately after that, crypto winter began on the market. However, many people forget that the launch of futures on CME raised the Bitcoin rate from $ 6,000 to $ 20,000 - by 225% in 2.5 months. The emergence of ETH futures on the CME is a powerful bullish catalyst.

People mostly remember how bitcoin hit its top on2017 the exact day the CME $ BTC futures launched, and proceeded to crash right after. They forget that the CME launch drove price from 6K to 20K, + 225% in 2.5 months. The launch of CME $ ETH futures is extremely bullish. pic.twitter.com/QFrG0TLhau

- Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) December 16, 2020

Tim McCourt, head of equity indexes and alternative investment products at CME Group, noted:

“Having gained access to Ether futures, our clientswill acquire convenient trading instruments for portfolio diversification and hedging. […] Ethereum is the second cryptocurrency by market capitalization and average daily trading volume. Regulated instruments on our proven derivatives trading platform will enable market participants to optimize risk management strategies.”

Since the beginning of the year, the average daily trading volume on the platform is approximately 42,800 bitcoins, worth over $880 million.

Good news for Ethereum

CME is the world's largest derivatives exchangefinancial instruments, therefore the listing of ETH futures will attract new institutional investors to the market. Given the growth rate of trading in Bitcoin futures contracts, CME Group expects that the Ethereum futures contract will generate the same interest among clients.

CME is seeing high interest from institutional investors. The company would hardly have decided to create a new tool if it had not seen its potential.

More good news for Ethereum

Ethereum has begun the transition to the second version of the network,and as the number of supporters grows, interest in the coin will grow. With the transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), Ethereum will process transactions faster and have lower fees.

Additionally, decentralized finance protocols(DeFi) are also mainly created on the Ethereum blockchain. Currently, more than $15 billion is locked in this segment, and the number of users continues to grow. All of these technical and fundamental advances, coupled with the upcoming launch of futures contracts on the world's largest derivatives exchange, indicate the network's exponential growth.

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