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CME’s Bitcoin Futures Debut Wins With Trading Value
Exchange saw lighter volume than rival Cboe, but larger contract size made up for the difference
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On Sunday, a week after Cboe Global Markets Inc. listed the first bitcoin futures contracts, CME Group Inc. debuted its own derivatives for the cryptocurrency. Trading volume for the CME futures has been light, with less than 650 contracts changing hands in the first eight hours of trading, compared with almost 2,500 over the same time frame during Cboe’s debut. Despite the lower volume, CME’s start may be seen as a win because its contracts, which are for five bitcoins compared with a single bitcoin on Cboe, had over $61 million in value traded -- about $12 million more than its rival.