The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group plans to launch Bitcoin spot trading in addition to its existing futures products, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The group has reportedly been holding discussions with traders who prefer to trade cryptocurrencies on regulated platforms. According to the report, this plan has not yet been finalized.
The FT report added that once Bitcoin spot trading begins on the CME, traders could profit from so-called basis trading, which allows them to profit by exploiting the difference between the futures price and the spot price of the underlying asset. CME Group owns the world’s largest futures exchange and already supports Bitcoin futures trading.
If launched as planned, CME will be another channel for Wall Street players to gain greater access to the digital asset, adding to the 11 physical Bitcoin exchange-traded funds approved in the U.S. in January.
In spot trading, the assets being traded are exchanged as quickly as possible, usually on the spot date. In the case of Bitcoin, this involves an instant asset transfer, directly exchanging it for fiat or another cryptocurrency at a given market price. Bitcoin spot trading is available on most cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Coinbase and Binance.
The spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund was deemed more successful than initially expected, recording net inflows worth $12.15 billion since its debut in January. With the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval, Bitcoin’s value hit a new high of over $73,000 in March.
Bitcoin price had risen 6.72% over the past 24 hours to $65,995 at the time of publication.
CME Group declined to comment on the matter.
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About the author
Danny Park is The Block’s East Asia reporter, writing about topics including Web3 development and cryptocurrency regulation in the region. He previously worked as a reporter for Forkast.News, where he actively covered the fall of Terra-Luna and FTX. Based in Seoul, Danny previously produced written and video content for media companies in Korea, Hong Kong and China. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Business Marketing from the University of Hong Kong.