Yes, contracts are available to trade during the following hours:

Globex pre-open

• Monday through Friday: 4:01 p.m. to 4:02 p.m. CT
• Saturday: 3:45 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. CT

Globex

24/7 with the exception of maintenance windows:

• Monday through Friday: 4:00 p.m. to 4:02 p.m. CT
• Saturday: 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. CT

ClearPort

24/7 with the exception of the maintenance window on Saturday from 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. CT.

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All Cryptocurrency futures and options are available for trading on Globex and submission for clearing via ClearPort 24/7.

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Cryptocurrency futures and options trade continuously on Globex. All holiday or weekend trading from Friday evening through Sunday evening has a trade date of the following business day, with clearing, settlement and regulatory reporting processed the following business day as well.

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See our CME Clearing and Global Operations requirements and guidelines.

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Visit our client impact assessment for more details.

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All Cryptocurrency options are European-style, meaning they can only be exercised on the last day of trading; early exercise is strictly prohibited. At expiration, in-the-money options are automatically exercised, and out-of-the-money options are abandoned. (Please note: Options on Bitcoin Friday futures (BFF) are also European-style but are financially settled against a fixing price rather than delivering a futures contract).

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Yes, both Cryptocurrency futures and options are block-eligible, governed by Exchange Rule 526. You can review the minimum block thresholds here and find block liquidity provider contact information here.

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While the options and futures themselves do not deliver spot coins, market participants who desire physical cryptocurrency exposure can utilize an Exchange for Related Positions (EFRP) transaction. Governed by Rule 538, an EFRP is a privately negotiated trade between two counterparties that allows them to simultaneously exchange a spot position for a futures position.

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• Settled into futures contracts: Most of our options deliver an underlying futures contract. For weekly options, the newly delivered futures contract will continue to actively trade. For monthly options, the delivered futures contract immediately expires to cash. (View settlement details for Bitcoin, Micro Bitcoin, Ether, Micro Ether, SOL, Micro SOL, XRP and Micro XRP).

• Financially settled: Options on Bitcoin Friday futures are financially settled.

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• Deliverable Weekly options: These options are exercisable at 4:00 p.m. London time. Moneyness is determined by a fixing price based on the VWAP of the underlying futures contract between 3:30:00 p.m. and 3:59:59 p.m. London time.
• Deliverable monthly options: These options are exercisable into the underlying futures on the last day of trading, as determined by the final settlement of the underlying futures.
• Financially settled options (BFF): Cash delivery equals the difference between the fixing price and the strike price. The fixing price corresponds to the final settlement price for BFF on the last business day of the week.

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Daily settlements for out-of-the-money options are determined by CME Group staff based on broad market activity. Once the underlying futures settle, option settlement prices are derived using implied volatility skews alongside the futures settlement price. In-the-money options settle automatically via the put-call parity equation. 

To ensure precision, the cost of carry is calculated using the Overnight Index Swap (OIS) curve corresponding to the contract's expiration date, rounded to the nearest minimum increment of the underlying futures contract.

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Designed by CME Group and CF Benchmarks, these reference rates represent the daily U.S. dollar price for cryptocurrencies (bitcoin, ether, XRP, SOL) captured at 4:00 p.m. London time. To ensure reliability, the rates are calculated using a volume-weighted median of transactions across major constituent exchanges over a one-hour window. View the full reference rates methodology here.

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• Fees: Can be found on our fee schedule.
• Margin: Clearing uses a SPAN model to determine the margin required to cover at least 99% of anticipated price changes for a product over a given liquidation period, factoring in historic/forward volatility, liquidity and correlations.

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All Cryptocurrency options fall under the Base Guaranty Fund for futures and options on futures.

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Cryptocurrency options are listed on the CME designated contract market (DCM).

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• Accessing Globex: Requires a relationship with a clearing member firm. Find out more about connecting to Globex.
• Prices and analytics: Delayed quotes will be available on cmegroup.com. You can also access quotes through CME Direct and major quote vendors. Explore CME Direct.
• Vendor codes: View the standard vendor codes and find Bloomberg codes on our Bloomberg cheat sheet. 
• Market Data channels: Real-time market data is on MDP Channel 327 (options) and MDP Channel 213 (reference rates/indices). Historical data is on DataMine.

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Visit cmegroup.com/cryptocurrencies for more information.

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