The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME) plans to introduce a micro form of Bitcoin and Ether futures. This was seen in a report published by the company on its site and via Twitter. The announcement was officially made by the company on Tuesday, in which the CME stated that the new micro options would be valued at 10% of the assets backing them, which in this case are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Micro Bitcoin and Ether futures as planned by the derivative company would come on mainstream by March 28.
The new products are coming a couple of years after the company launched its premier bitcoin futures in 2018. The product gives investors and customers of the CME the opportunity to be exposed to the tokens behind the products without the undue exposure to the high volatility that they would encounter while trading or investing directly in the digital assets.
Accommodates Traders And Investors Irrespective of Portfolio Size
The company said that the main benefit of the micro futures option is that it enables traders and investors irrespective of the size of their portfolios to be accommodated in the investment packages offered. The micro futures also act as a hedging facility for those that participate in them.
According to a tweet from the company on Tuesday, The CME stated that the Bitcoin and Ether futures represent the latest inclusion in a series of market-hedging products that gives investors flexibility in the quest to benefit from tokens with greater precision.
Tim McCourt, the company’s head of FX products and global equity said that the fine-tuning of the investors exposure to cryptocurrency tokens such as Bitcoin and Ethereum comes handy with the new micro futures addition to the CME products line. He added that there are immense possibilities inherent in the micro futures in a rapidly moving market such as digital assets.
The product that was initially introduced to the derivative community in December 2021, sizes BTC futures at 0.1 bitcoins while that of Ethereum were sized 0.1 ETH. The products that have been trading since May 2021 are sized in blocks with the minimum block size available for the investor being 10 contract options for bitcoins and 100 contract options for ether.
The liquidity vehicle providers for the CME micro contracts are Akuna Capital, Cumberland and Genesis Global Trading.
Good News for The Coin Market Despite Challenges
The recent announcement by the derative company coincided with a boost in the value of Bitcoin which has gained 15%, reaching a week-high above $44,000. Prior to this, the coin had slumped to $38,000. The recent upswing was despite regulatory actions on the coin market in places like Canada and the United States. Also, the EU has joined in the race to regulate cryptocurrencies which many analysts are of the opinion that it could act as a tool that helps in the circumvention of sanctions against Russia after the country invaded Ukrain last Thursday.