The upcoming launch of euro-denominated Bitcoin and Ether futures products could bolster institutional cryptocurrency adoption in the eurozone, Giovanni Vicioso, the executive director of equity and alternative products at the CME Group, told Cointelegraph in an exclusive interview.
“I think when you look at our current suite of United States dollar-denominated products, we have a fairly diverse appendix of participants, like traditional proprietary trading firms that are providing liquidity for those products, and I anticipate that some of those participants are also going to provide liquidity for the euro-based products as well.”
Vicioso added that CME’s upcoming euro-denominated futures products also received interest from macro hedge funds, small asset managers and long-term crypto investors.
CME is the world’s leading derivatives marketplace and encompasses four exchanges. The firm is preparing to expand its cryptocurrency derivatives products, adding euro-denominated Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether futures products, which are set to launch on March 18.
The introduction of the euro-denominated products will essentially create a de facto foreign exchange (FX) contract, which is expected to attract more market participants, Vicioso told Cointelegraph:
“You can either long the U.S. dollar contract and short the euro version or vice versa, and you could do that with the Bitcoin and Ether contract. You buy one, sell the other, and you’ve got a de facto FX contract.”
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Bitcoin (BTC)-based exchange-traded products (ETPs) have been generating significant interest since the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were approved in the U.S. on Jan. 11. Excluding the converted Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) ETF, the nine new spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded over $2 billion in combined daily volume for the second consecutive day on Feb. 28.
The anticipation and regulatory approval of the U.S.-based spot Bitcoin ETFs has led to an increase in overall institutional interest in Bitcoin, according to Vicioso.
“Since September, we have seen an uptick in Euro-denominated Bitcoin and Ether volumes and we also continue to hear of growing customer interest, particularly in euro-denominated cryptocurrency products.”
The CME has nearly doubled its average daily Bitcoin trading volume, from an average of $1.6 billion a day in 2023 to over $3 billion of daily trading volume in 2024, according to Vicioso.
Bitcoin fell 0.62% in the 24 hours leading up to 1:15 pm UTC to trade at $62,383. The world’s first cryptocurrency is up 22.50% on the weekly chart.
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