CME Group has announced plans to launch Bitcoin Friday futures (BFF) on September 30, subject to regulatory approval. These new weekly futures contracts will be sized at 1/50 of one bitcoin and will be cash-settled using the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate New York Variant (BRRNY) every Friday at 4:00 p.m. New York time. The BFF contracts aim to offer a tool for investors to manage Bitcoin exposure, particularly in anticipation of weekend price movements.
Each week, a new BFF contract will be listed on Thursday for trading on the following Friday, with market participants able to trade the nearest two Fridays. These contracts are intended to provide flexibility to a broad range of market participants, including institutional investors and active retail traders, allowing them to fine-tune their bitcoin positions within a regulated framework.
According to Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group’s Global Head of Cryptocurrency Products, these contracts are designed to help traders more accurately manage their Bitcoin exposure. The contracts will be settled against the BRRNY, a benchmark commonly used by spot bitcoin ETFs, offering a familiar reference point for market participants.
The announcement has been met with support from various industry players. Steve Sanders, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Product Development at Interactive Brokers, mentioned that the BFF contracts would provide a cost-effective method for managing bitcoin exposure. Elad Even-Chen, Group CFO of Plus500, remarked that the contracts would appeal to a wide array of investors, offering a new way to manage cryptocurrency portfolios.
These new futures contracts will join CME Group’s existing Bitcoin futures offerings, which have seen record trading volumes in 2024. The average daily volume for Bitcoin futures has reached 14,554 contracts, with open interest of 27,900 contracts. Micro Bitcoin futures have also shown strong performance, with an average daily volume of 37,000 contracts and open interest of 28,000 contracts.
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