The second quarter of 2025 saw a powerful continuation of growth in our market, as increasing institutional adoption and a clearer regulatory environment fueled a significant expansion in trading activity. Our Crypto product suite saw a +140% year-over-year increase in average daily volume (ADV), setting a new record of $10.5B in notional volume traded daily. Underscoring this momentum, the average daily open interest for the quarter settled at 217K contracts (over $21B notional), signaling deep and sustained engagement from market participants. 

As the crypto landscape matures, we continue to provide new tools for risk management, including Solana, XRP and Spot-Quoted futures, along with robust, actionable liquidity to manage market uncertainty.

Cryptocurrency futures and options
Average daily volume: 190K contracts, $9.6B notional
Average daily open interest: 217K contracts, $21.2B notional

*Indicates a new all-time record. Notably, Ether (ETH) and Micro Ether (MET) futures both saw volume growth exceed 200% year-over-year as interest in ether builds.

Launched on June 30, our new Spot-Quoted Bitcoin and Ether futures are designed to provide the capital efficiency of futures while mirroring spot market execution. These contracts are longer-dated, removing the need to manage monthly position rolls. Spot-Quoted futures are also available on S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Dow Jones and Russell 2000. Reach out to your broker today to start trading the six key markets.

The market for regulated cryptocurrency exposure continues to expand. Our recently launched futures contracts on Solana and XRP have seen significant adoption.

• Since March 17, SOL and Micro SOL have seen a total of 153.1K contracts traded, representing $4.6B in notional value and 31.2K equivalent SOL.
• Since May 19, XRP and Micro XRP have already seen 63.1K contracts traded, equating to over $1.6B in notional value and 26K equivalent XRP.

These CFTC-regulated, USD-settled contracts offer a way to manage exposure to these assets without the need for digital wallets or direct crypto holdings. 

In a classic display of market divergence, while ether's price was down 25% for the year, trading activity in Ether futures told a different story in Q2, with ADV surging to new records.

In Q2 2025:

• Ether futures ADV reached a record 16K contracts ($1.8B notional).
• Micro Ether futures ADV also set a new record of 83.8K contracts.
• Trading volume in Ether and Micro Ether futures saw a 200% increase in ADV vs. the same quarter in 2024.
• Ether futures open interest climbed to an all-time high of 27.9K contracts ($3.4B notional) on June 24.

The increased trading activity coincided with a sharp reversal in a key relative value metric: the Ether/Bitcoin ratio. After hitting a low of 0.01797 on April 21, the ratio rallied more than 30% to end the quarter at 0.023394. For traders focused on relative value strategies, our Ether/Bitcoin Ratio (EBR) futures contract is designed to trade this specific relationship directly, without slippage. 

Crypto options: Q2 2025 was a record quarter for open interest in our Bitcoin options suite, with notional OI reaching almost $4B. The Ether options suite also saw a 65% increase in average daily volume compared to Q2 2024.

Trade at Settlement (TAS) remains a popular trade for Bitcoin and Ether futures, highlighting the need for flexibility around daily settlement. In Q2 2025, Bitcoin futures and Ether futures TAS transactions averaged 1.6K and 1.5K contracts per day, with nearly 200K TAS transactions across all contract sizes this quarter. TAS allows traders the ability to buy or sell a futures contract at a spread to its yet-to-be-determined daily settlement price.

Basis Trade at Index Close (BTIC) is available across our USD-denominated Cryptocurrency futures suite. You can enter a BTIC on Cryptocurrency futures against the corresponding underlying reference rate, or choose variants like New York or APAC, depending on your needs. BTIC provides market participants the ability to trade key futures contracts at a fixed spread or basis to a reference price.

In Q2 2025, we, in partnership with CF Benchmarks, expanded our suite of regulated, non-tradable Cryptocurrency Reference Rates and Real-Time Indices with the addition of the following: 

• Reference Rate and Real-Time Indices: 
  • ARB
  • NEAR
  • DOT
  • Ondo
  • Sui
• Additional variants: 
  • DOT (APAC)
  • Stellar Lumens (NY)
  • Bitcoin Cash (NY)
  • Avalanche (NY)
  • Cardano (NY)
  • NEAR (NY)
  • Arbitrum (NY)

The reference rates are calculated by aggregating trade flow of major cryptocurrency spot exchanges using U.S. dollar prices. Benchmarks are published each day, including weekends and bank holidays. 

With the inclusion of these new assets, our suite of CME CF Reference Rates and Real-Time Indices now provides pricing data covering more than 96% of the investible cryptocurrency market, creating a comprehensive and reliable foundation for the entire digital asset ecosystem.