CME Group, the world’s largest derivatives market, plans to introduce Solana (SOL) futures on March 17, increasing its suite of cryptocurrency derivatives, it stated in a press launch on Friday. The brand new contracts, pending regulatory evaluation, will permit merchants to handle SOL worth danger with two contract sizes: 25 SOL and 500 SOL.
“With the launch of our new SOL futures contracts, we’re responding to rising shopper demand for a broader set of regulated merchandise,” stated Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group’s World Head of Cryptocurrency Merchandise.
The contracts can be cash-settled, utilizing the CME CF Solana-Greenback Reference Price, which tracks SOL’s worth every day at 4:00 p.m. London time. CME already presents bitcoin and ether futures, which have seen vital development in buying and selling exercise. The agency reported a mean every day quantity of 202,000 contracts this 12 months, up 73% from 2024.
Trade leaders view the transfer as a step towards higher institutional adoption of crypto. Teddy Fusaro, president of Bitwise Asset Administration, famous that CME’s crypto derivatives have helped pave the way in which for regulated monetary merchandise, together with ETFs. Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital added that such merchandise give refined traders extra instruments to handle danger and publicity.
With Solana gaining traction amongst builders and traders, the addition of SOL futures highlights the rising demand for regulated crypto buying and selling merchandise. It may additionally pave the way in which for SOL exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to be permitted by the Securities and Trade Fee (SEC).
“CME’s determination to checklist SOL contracts right now considerably will increase the likelihood that corresponding spot ETF purposes may very well be permitted within the foreseeable future,” stated Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks.
“Whereas an actual timeline for approval is difficult to discern, it’s possible the SEC will need to see a number of months’ value of buying and selling on the CME and be happy that the futures correlate with the spot market earlier than it appears to be like to approve ETF purposes for SOL.”
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