CME Bitcoin Futures Trading To Run On Google Cloud After $1B Investment From Alphabet

The CME Group and Google Cloud have entered a 10-year strategic partnership after a $1 billion investment from Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc GOOGL.

The equity investment was made through the company’s non-voting convertible preferred stock.

What Happened: Under the terms of the deal, CME’s trading systems will be moved to Google Cloud next year.

CME is responsible for bringing the first Bitcoin BTC/USD futures contract to market in 2017. The institution-focused crypto exchange also offers micro Bitcoin futures, Ethereum ETH/USD futures, and most recently, micro Ethereum futures.

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF BITO, the first U.S. Bitcoin-linked ETF, offers investors exposure to Bitcoin by way of CME Bitcoin Futures contracts.

See Also: Why Financial Market Data is Moving To The Cloud

As of next year, the trading operations of all these crypto derivatives products would be facilitated through Google Cloud infrastructure.

“This partnership will enable CME Group to bring new products and services to market faster – all in a flexible and scalable environment that will create a wide range of opportunities for the marketplace," said Terry Duffy, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, CME Group.

According to Reuters, the deal marks a “big win” for Google’s cloud business against competitors like Amazon.com Inc AMZN and Microsoft Corp MSFT.

Price Action: GOOGL traded 1.14% higher on Thursday, closing at a price of $2,965.35 per share.

Photo: Mitchell Luo on Unsplash