CME Group, one of the largest marketplaces for derivative financial instruments, announced on Thursday the launch of options on Ethereum futures next month. Barring an unsuccessful regulatory review, the service will launch on September 12, mere days before The Merge, which is slated to take place on September 15/16.
Key takeaways:
- According to a press release, the new Ethereum options contracts will be sized at 50 ETH per contract (roughly $84,000 at current market rates) and will use the CME CF Ether-Dollar price as a reference rate.
- The launch of new Eher options will further expand CME’s existing crypto offering, which currently includes micro-sized Ethereum futures as well as micro- and regular-sized Bitcoin options.
- “The launch of these new options contracts builds on the significant growth and deep liquidity we have seen in our existing Ether futures, which have traded more than 1.8 million contracts to date,” said Global Head of Equity and FX Products at the CME Group.
- Pending regulatory review, CME plans to launch the new options based on ETH futures on September 12. The date coincides with the much-anticipated Merge, which will see the Ethereum mainnet transition from the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus to up to 99.9% more energy-efficient Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
- After a month of mostly positive price movements, which saw the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency gain over 50% and briefly surpass the $2,000 mark earlier this week, the price of Ethereum plummeted by over 8% on Friday. The drop has been largely attributed to the broader negative market sentiment following the Fed’s announcement that outlined the continuation of its restrictive monetary policy throughout 2023.
