Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME Group), a large derivatives market is making plans to introduce an Ether (ETH) futures contract trading feature.
The CME Group announced on Thursday that, pending regulatory approval, it intends to introduce options contracts for its Ether futures, with a contract size of 50 ETH.
The futures options, which are anticipated to begin trading on September 12th, come after the company introduced micro-sized Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether options in March 2022, BTC options trading products in January 2020, and BTC futures contract in December 2017.
Tim McCourt, global head of stock and FX products at CME Group, mentioned the ETH futures product when he announced the Ethereum blockchain’s impending switch to proof-of-stake, also known as the Merge.
For ETH futures and micro-sized ETH futures options, trade volume and open interest have increased, according to McCourt, potentially in preparation for The Merge.
According to McCourt, “We have […] witnessed increased activity in our September and December Micro Ether options, which may also indicate that participants are hedging risk around the projected date of the integration.” “The September and December contracts have 778 percent of Micro Ether options open interest.”
The average daily trading volume of ETH futures increased by 7% between June and July, according to the CME Group, while the same volume of contracts for micro ETH futures increased by 41%.
Prior to the Merge, which core developers anticipate to occur on September 15, trading activity for ETH and investments tied to the cryptocurrency may experience substantial volume.
The price of ETH is $1,863 at the time of publication, up 2% over the previous 24 hours, in November 2021, the token’s value reached a record high of over $4,800.
