Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
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Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) plans to offer spot Bitcoin trading services to its clients.
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CME is currently the leading bitcoin futures exchange by open interest.
CME to Roll Out Spot Bitcoin Trading Services
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) plans to offer spot bitcoin trading to clients. This is according to a Financial Times report on Thursday, which pointed out that the service comes due to increasing demand by market participants.
CME is currently the leading bitcoin futures exchange by open interest and now seeks to take on Binance, Coinbase, and other leading Bitcoin spot trading platforms.
According to FT, CME has already held discussions with traders who intend to trade BTC on a regulated marketplace. FT added that CME's spot trading business could be run through the EBS currency trading venue in Switzerland.
CME’s existing standard and micro-futures contracts allow institutional investors to gain access to the cryptocurrency market. Its existing customer base could allow it to become a leading spot trading crypto exchange.
Market analysts believe that CME’s launch of spot trading services could threaten Binance and others. While speaking to CoinDEesk, Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, said,
“Crypto exchanges might lose some business with the potential debut of a bitcoin spot market on the CME, a global derivatives giant, as the present bull run is particularly driven by institutions, who prefer to trade on regulated avenues."
The launch of spot trading services on CME would allow its clients to integrate complex multi-leg strategies involving spot and futures markets in a single regulated marketplace.
