At the exchange, micro Ether futures join crypto derivatives products such as micro Bitcoin futures, Bitcoin futures, options on Bitcoin futures, and Ether futures.
Important derivatives market The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group has added a micro Ether futures product to its crypto offerings.
In a Monday announcement, the CME Group said it had launched a micro Ether (ETH) futures contract sized at 0.1 ETH, giving institutional and individual traders another product for Ether exposure. The cash-settled micro ETH derivatives offering is trading under the Globex code METZ1 and joins crypto derivatives products at the exchange including micro Bitcoin (BTC) futures, Bitcoin futures, options on Bitcoin futures and Ether futures.
The newest member of the CME Group cryptocurrency product family has arrived. Micro Ether futures are available for trading. https://t.co/bJoZWA7qZz
— CME Group (@CMEGroup) December 6, 2021
Tim McCourt, CME Group’s global head of alternative investment products, said the offering would allow investors “to hedge their spot Ether price risk or more nimbly execute Ether trading strategies.” Genesis Global Trading, one of the liquid providers for CME Group’s crypto derivatives offerings, said it had already executed a contract for the micro ETH futures product in partnership with crypto investment firm XBTO.
“The Micro Ether futures contract fills a need for greater flexibility and more precise delta hedging,” said Joshua Lim, Genesis’ head of derivatives.
The announcement came after the price of ETH and many other cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, plummeted over the weekend. According to data, the price of ETH has fallen by more than 15% since reaching an all-time high of $4,785 on November 8. The price of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation is $4,016 at the time of publication, having dropped more than 13% in the previous seven days.
CME Group first offered Bitcoin futures contracts in December 2017, at the height of the market’s bull run. The exchange’s micro Bitcoin futures product debuted in May, and the company reported on Thursday that it had traded over 3.3 million contracts.
