CHICAGO, Sept. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced it will launch options on its Bitcoin futures contracts in Q1 2020, pending regulatory review.

"Based on increasing client demand and robust growth in our Bitcoin futures markets, we believe the launch of options will provide our clients with additional flexibility to trade and hedge their bitcoin price risk," said Tim McCourt, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products. "These new products are designed to help institutions and professional traders to manage spot market bitcoin exposure, as well as hedge Bitcoin futures positions in a regulated exchange environment."

Since their launch in December 2017, market users have rapidly adopted CME Bitcoin futures for their hedging and trading needs. There have been 20 successful futures expiration settlements and more than 3,300 individual accounts have traded the product since inception. Year to date, nearly 7,000 CME Bitcoin futures contracts (equivalent to about 35,000 bitcoin) have traded on average each day. At the same time, institutional interest continues to build with the number of large open interest holders reaching a record 56 in July.

CME Group is the only derivatives marketplace where customers can hedge or trade benchmark options on futures across every investable asset class, with average daily volume of 4.3 million in 2019 to date. By launching Bitcoin options, the company is providing clients with additional tools for precision hedging and trading.

For more information and educational resources related to options on futures visit CME Institute. Bitcoin options will be listed on and subject to the rules of CME. For more information, please visit http://www.cmegroup.com/bitcoinoptions.

As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. With a range of pre- and post-trade products and services underpinning the entire lifecycle of a trade, CME Group also offers optimization and reconciliation services through TriOptima, and trade processing services through Traiana.

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SOURCE CME Group