'More Institutional Volume Than We Anticipated': CME Micro Bitcoin Futures Contracts Cross 1M

What Happened: Only a month after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) (NASDAQ: CME) launched Micro Bitcoin futures, over 1 million contracts have been traded, marking a new milestone for the investment product.

Today we announced a new milestone for Micro Bitcoin futures: 1 million contracts have traded in just 38 trading days since launch, indicating strong interest in the smaller-sized contract designed to provide greater precision in managing bitcoin exposure: https://t.co/AA4jm1yVTW pic.twitter.com/QFHXN50YGu

— CME Group (@CMEGroup) June 25, 2021

CME noted that the volume of contracts traded in just 38 days indicated “strong interest” in the contract designed to act as a more precise hedge in managing Bitcoin BTC/USD exposure.

A Micro Bitcoin futures contract is one-tenth the size of one Bitcoin and denominated at 0.1 BTC, whereas the standard CME Bitcoin futures contract is 5 BTC.

Why It Matters: "We've seen more institutional volume than we anticipated, which shows that the timing was right for a smaller bitcoin contract," said Brooks Dudley, global head of digital assets at ED&F Man Capital Markets.

Tim McCourt, CME Group Global head of equity Index and alternative investment products, said that the smaller contract serves both institutional and smaller retail traders with an effective tool to “hedge against their spot bitcoin price risk or execute bitcoin trading strategies.”

Read also: How To Trade Bitcoin Futures

The massive growth of Bitcoin Micro futures contracts comes at a time when Bitcoin traders faced massive volatility, as the price of the leading digital asset fell below $30,000, and many traders remained uncertain about its short-term outlook.

Price Action: At press time, Bitcoin was trading above $34,420 after gaining 3.42% overnight.

The leading digital asset accounted for 46.7% of the market, with a trading volume of $34 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

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