CME Micro Bitcoin Futures Surpass 1 Million Contracts Traded

June 25, 2021 - Micro Bitcoin Futures, with a notional value of 1/10th of 1 bitcoin, were launched by the CME last month on May 3rd. Today the futures exchange announced that futures volume on the cryptocurrency surpassed 1 million contracts on Friday, June 25.

"We continue to see strong customer demand and rapid uptake in our new Micro Bitcoin futures contract since their introduction a little more than a month ago," said Tim McCourt, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products. "At one-tenth of one bitcoin, this micro-sized contact is designed to provide market participants – from institutions to smaller, sophisticated, active traders – with another tool to hedge their spot bitcoin price risk or execute bitcoin trading strategies in an efficient, cost-effective and easily accessible way.

"This is a tremendous achievement for a contract that was just launched seven weeks ago," said Brooks Dudley, Global Head of Digital Assets at ED&F Man Capital Markets. "We've seen more institutional volume than we anticipated, which shows that the timing was right for a smaller bitcoin contract."

"The addition of Micro Bitcoin futures has further opened the door for active retail traders across asset classes to enter the futures marketplace," said Martin Franchi, CEO of NinjaTrader Group, LLC. "We have seen the fast rise in popularity of this new micro contract among the NinjaTrader user community correlate with growing demand from cryptocurrency traders interested in the opportunity to diversify and leverage professional tools in their trading."

Micro Bitcoin futures are cash-settled to the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate, which serves as a once-a-day reference rate of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin. Micro Bitcoin futures are listed on and subject to the rules of CME.

Full contract specifications for Micro Bitcoin Futures can be viewed here.