CME Group Derivative Market Launches Bitcoin And Ether Reference Levels For Asia Pacific Region

CME Group announced a partnership with crypto index provider CF Benchmarks (photo: dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - On August 16, the CME Group derivative market announced a partnership with crypto index provider CF Benchmarks to launch two crypto reference levels focused on the Asia Pacific region on September 11.

Reference rates are used as a credible source for cryptocurrency prices and used - in the CME case - to determine the price of crypto futures contract settlements.

The CME Group states that starting September 11, crypto institutions and investors in the Asian region will get two reference rates that will track BTC and ETH, which will be published once a day at 16.00 Hong Kong time.

The CME Group already has existing reference rates for both cryptocurrencies, but they are published at a more appropriate time for investors in the New York and London time zones.

CME's head of crypto product, Giovanni Vicioso, said that so far this year, 37% of the crypto trading volume in CME was carried out during trading hours outside the US, with 11% coming from the Asia Pacific region.

"This APAC reference ratio will allow market participants to secure the risk of cryptocurrency prices more accurately and on time, which is more parallel to their portfolio," Vicioso said, quoted by Cointelegraph.

Matrixport's Head of Research, Markus Thielen, told Cointelegraph that the reference rate shows that CME sees growing demand from institutions requiring accurate BTC and ETH prices during trading hours in Asia.

These institutions will use daily prices for investor products - which according to him can now experience an increase in demand from end investors from these institutions.

CME and CF also have reference rates and real-time indexes for metaverse related tokens such as Axie Infinity Shards (AXS), Chiliz (CHZ), and Decentraland (MANA).

The company's reference levels combine crypto exchange spot trading streams including those from Bitstamp, Coinbase, Gemini, and Kraken, and aim to provide credible reference prices.

This degree of reference is used in the completion of futures contracts including Bitcoin and Ether futures products from CME, which settle at a London time reference rate.

Institutions have been monitoring crypto-friendly jurisdictions such as Hong Kong and Singapore - two regions that have taken significant steps to provide regulatory clarity for the crypto business.