CME Group, the world’s largest derivatives market, plans to introduce Solana (SOL) futures on March 17, increasing its suite of cryptocurrency derivatives, it mentioned in a press launch on Friday. The brand new contracts, pending regulatory assessment, will enable merchants to handle SOL worth threat with two contract sizes: 25 SOL and 500 SOL.
“With the launch of our new SOL futures contracts, we’re responding to growing consumer demand for a broader set of regulated merchandise,” mentioned Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group’s International Head of Cryptocurrency Merchandise.
The contracts will likely be cash-settled, utilizing the CME CF Solana-Greenback Reference Fee, which tracks SOL’s worth day by day at 4:00 p.m. London time. CME already provides bitcoin and ether futures, which have seen vital progress in buying and selling exercise. The agency reported a median day by day quantity of 202,000 contracts this 12 months, up 73% from 2024.
Trade leaders view the transfer as a step towards higher institutional adoption of crypto. Teddy Fusaro, president of Bitwise Asset Administration, famous that CME’s crypto derivatives have helped pave the way in which for regulated monetary merchandise, together with ETFs. Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital added that such merchandise give subtle traders extra instruments to handle threat and publicity.
With Solana gaining traction amongst builders and traders, the addition of SOL futures highlights the growing demand for regulated crypto buying and selling merchandise. It might additionally pave the way in which for SOL exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to be accredited by the Securities and Change Fee (SEC).
“CME’s determination to checklist SOL contracts in the present day considerably will increase the likelihood that corresponding spot ETF purposes may very well be accredited within the foreseeable future,” mentioned Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks.
“Whereas an actual timeline for approval is difficult to discern, it’s possible the SEC will wish to see a number of months’ value of buying and selling on the CME and be glad that the futures correlate with the spot market earlier than it seems to be to approve ETF purposes for SOL.”
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