Institutional investors flood into CME Group's regulated crypto derivatives market, setting a series of records across Ether-related futures and options Ethereum$3,905.12Solana sol$192.89 CME spoke to CoinDesk on Thursday about XRP and XRP.
Since October 10, CME's open interest in crypto futures and options has surged 27%, a rise the exchange can attribute to a shift away from offshore markets following last week's wave of liquidations.
On Tuesday, open interest in ETH futures reached a record high of 48,600 contracts, while SOL futures and XRP futures also hit record highs of 20,700 contracts and 10,100 contracts, respectively.
Options open interest reached $9 billion, a new record. This highlighted that more traders are using CME products instead of offshore alternatives for speculation as a hedging or regulatory tool. CME MicroEther futures ranked second in volume on Tuesday, reflecting broader changes.
“The top 10 (open interest) days in October all demonstrated strong confidence and growing participation in the regulated crypto derivatives market,” a CME spokesperson said, highlighting growing market participation and growing confidence among professional investors.
This trend is based on CME's third-quarter results, where crypto futures and options combined trading volume exceeded $900 billion and average daily open interest reached $31.3 billion. In September, nominal open interest peaked at $39 billion. More than 1,000 large open interest holders were active during this period, suggesting that the use of these products has expanded beyond the circle of niche traders.
This growth is not limited to Bitcoin and Ether. CME's solana and XRP futures have received a lot of attention since their launch earlier this year. Solana futures had open interest of over $2.1 billion by September, while XRP had reached $1.4 billion.
