Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, the world’s largest derivatives exchange, is reportedly in the process of launching three new cryptocurrency price indexes, a move that may help pave the way for the company to extend its range of futures contracts beyond Bitcoin and Ether. The news was revealed in a recent report by the Wall Street Journal.
Starting on October 31st, CME and its index partner, CF Benchmarks, will begin providing daily and real-time price indexes for the cryptocurrencies Avalanche, Filecoin, and Tezos, respectively, according to a press statement issued by both companies.
According to the article, the Chicago-based CME Group first produced Bitcoin and Ether price indexes that were comparable to each other before offering Bitcoin and Ether futures.
Regarding that, the company said:
The launch of our new Ether options contracts is particularly well-timed to provide the crypto community with another important tool to gain access to and manage exposure to Ether.
The CME has said in the past that both futures and options offer ways for investors to gamble on the trends of a cryptocurrency price without having to actually possess the underlying coin. This helps investors avoid problems with regulatory oversight and custodianship.
In related developments, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has now reported that its quarterly international average daily volume (ADV) hit 6.1 million contracts in the third quarter of 2022, representing a year-on-year increase of 21%.
Volume was principally driven by a rise of 36% in Foreign Exchange goods, a growth of 32% in Interest Rate products, and a growth of 25% in Equity Index products. This growth reflects all trading that was reported to have occurred outside of the United States.
