Bitcoin’s catalysts drove trading in Q1 2024, but now it’s ether’s turn. With the approval of 19b-4 filings for Spot Ether ETFs, CME Group’s suite of Ether products have seen increased volume and open interest over the quarter. In particular, the relationship between bitcoin and ether began to change as the Ether/Bitcoin Ratio gained 7% and 9% in the days leading up to the approval.

Traders began utilizing Ether/Bitcoin Ratio futures more than ever in Q2 as ether’s performance improved relative to bitcoin’s performance. Over $260M in notional value was traded. Ether futures achieved record open interest of 7.6K contracts ($1.3B notional) on June 24 and a record $2.85B traded on May 21. In addition to Ether futures, Micro Ether futures saw a record 1.8K unique accounts trading in May, followed by a record average daily volume of 28.9K contracts in June as traders fine-tuned their exposure.

Institutional interest for bitcoin and ether remain strong as evidenced by the record number of large open interest holders (LOIH)^[1] achieved throughout 2024. CME Group Cryptocurrency futures averaged a record 480 holders in Q2, up 9% from the prior record quarterly average in Q1 2024. Additionally, the suite of futures and options averaged a record $13.7B open interest throughout the quarter.

Delivering deeper liquidity, greater capital efficiency and now lower fees through January 31, 2025. View the fee schedule for details.

• Futures:
  • MBT futures non-member exchange fees are reduced from $2.50 to $1.00 per contract
  • MET futures non-member exchange fees are reduced from $0.20 to $0.10 per contract
• Options:
  • Exchange trading fees are reduced by 50% per contract

Market-Wide Fee discounts also apply to our recently launched Micro Bitcoin Euro and Micro Ether Euro contracts, which have seen a substantial pickup in trading with over 12K contracts traded in June alone. Screens are actively quoted, check them out today.

The Trading at Settlement (TAS) functionality is now expanded to include second month, third month and calendar spreads on Bitcoin futures. In 2024, 7.3K TAS trades occurred through May, and with the recent TAS expansion, over 20K trades occurred in June alone. This clearly demonstrated the need for participants' desire to transact at a spread, or basis, to the yet-to-be-determined daily settlement price of the underlying futures contract.

Basis Trade at Index Close (BTIC) has remained a popular trade type, allowing transactions at a spread, or basis, to the corresponding underlying reference rate. BTIC functionality is available relative to the respective CME CF Reference Rates published at 4:00 p.m. London, New York or Hong Kong /Singapore time. Over 2.1K BTIC transactions have occurred this year.

CME recently announced changes to Bitcoin futures position limits effective June 20, 2024. To find out more, please click here.

Q2 2024 VOLUME AND OPEN INTEREST

Cryptocurrency futures and options
ADV: 80.6K contracts
Open interest: 117.8K contracts

^{*Indicates record performance}

[1] LOIH: A Cryptocurrency futures LOIH is defined as any entity that holds at least 25 contracts of the respective futures.