CHICAGO and LONDON, Jan. 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, and CF Benchmarks, the leading provider of cryptocurrency benchmark indices, today announced plans to launch three new Metaverse reference rates and real-time indices, which will be calculated and published daily by CF Benchmarks, beginning January 30.

These reference rates and indices are not tradable futures products. They include the following:

• Axie Infinity (AXS)
• Chiliz (CHZ)
• Decentraland (MANA)

"As we continue to see a rising interest in Metaverse projects, CME Group, in partnership with CF Benchmarks, will expand its suite of regulated, non-tradable Cryptocurrency Reference Rates and Real-Time Indices to include three new Metaverse tokens," said Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group Global Head of Cryptocurrency Products. "With increased price transparency across more cryptocurrency products, market participants will be able to price sector-specific portfolios, develop structured products with greater confidence and manage price risk around various Metaverse-based projects."

CME CF Reference Rates and Real-Time Indices are based on robust methodologies that have regular expert oversight and are designed to meet the growing need for transparent, regulated and round-the-clock pricing.

As with all existing CME CF Benchmarks reference rates and real-time indices, these new Metaverse benchmarks will utilize pricing data from those leading crypto exchanges and trading platforms that are current constituent exchanges for the CME CF Benchmark suite of reference rates and real-time indices. Each of the new Axie Infinity, Chiliz, and Decentraland benchmarks will be calculated with pricing data from a minimum of two of these exchanges – Bitstamp, Coinbase, Gemini, itBit, Kraken, and LMAX Digital.

"These benchmarks will provide accurate and resilient pricing data for tokens linked to the Metaverse, an exciting new scion of crypto where properties and communities can exist wholly within a virtual realm," said Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks. "CF Benchmarks is proud to continue its work with CME Group, providing investors with exposure to all facets of the digital asset class with reference rates that meet the high benchmarking standards they've come to expect."

Each of these new reference rates will provide the U.S. dollar price of each digital asset, published once-a-day at 4 p.m. London time, while each respective real-time index will be published once per second, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.

For more information on these products, please visit www.cmegroup.com/cryptobenchmarks.

As the world's leading 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. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec and EBS are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD and EBS Group LTD, respectively. Dow Jones, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and S&P are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and S&P/Dow Jones Indices LLC, as the case may be, and have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CF Benchmarks is the leading provider of cryptocurrency benchmark indices, authorised and regulated by the UK FCA under the EU BMR. Composed of market data from six constituent exchanges, its benchmark indices are provided through public methodologies and transparent governance, for tracking, valuing and settling risk in cryptocurrency financial services and products. CF Benchmarks' indices have been used to settle over $500bn of cryptocurrency derivative contracts listed for trading by CME Group and Kraken Futures.

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SOURCE CME Group