CME Group to launch Cardano, Stellar, and Chainlink futures

CME Group, a leading global derivatives exchange, announced plans to launch futures contracts for Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK), and Stellar (XLM) on February 9. The products are regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The Chicago-based derivatives marketplace will offer both micro-sized and larger-sized contracts for each crypto asset.

The new offerings will include ADA futures covering 100,000 ADA tokens and Micro ADA futures for 10,000 ADA tokens. LINK futures will cover 5,000 LINK tokens, with Micro LINK futures covering 250 tokens. Lumens futures will cover 250,000 Lumens, with Micro Lumens futures covering 12,500 tokens.

CME launches more products after a 139% year-over-year surge

Products will be cash-settled and traded on CME’s regulated futures platform. The three assets are an addition to CME’s crypto product lineup, which features Bitcoin futures that launched in December 2017, followed by Ether futures in February 2021, XRP, and Solana, and its added options launched late last year, as documented by Cryptopolitan.

Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group Global Head of crypto products, stated:

“Given crypto’s record growth over the last year, clients are looking for trusted, regulated products to manage price risk as well as additional tools to gain exposure to this dynamic market […] With these new micro- and larger-size Cardano, Chainlink, and Stellar futures contracts, market participants will now have greater choice with enhanced flexibility and more capital efficiencies.”

Trading activity in 2025 reached record levels across the company’s crypto markets. Average daily trading volume for futures and options combined rose 139% year-over-year with 278,300 contracts, representing about $12 billion in notional value. At the same time, average open interest climbed to a record 313,900 contracts, which is equal to $26.4 billion in notional terms.

Futures contracts accounted for the bulk of this activity. Futures average daily volume hit a record 272,200 contracts, with a notional value of $11.7 billion. Average open interest in futures also reached a new high of 253,600 contracts, representing $21.4 billion in notional value.

Options trading, while smaller in scale, also set records. Average daily volume for options reached 4,100 contracts, or $231 million in notional value. There were an average of 60,400 open interest contracts in options, which were worth about $5 billion.

In 2025, the crypto derivatives market had a total volume of around $86 trillion. According to a CoinGlass report, the average daily turnover is almost $265 billion. CME cemented its position as the leader in BTC derivatives, overtaking Binance in futures open interest for long periods of time as institutions preferred regulated venues for hedging and basis trading.

CME Group to Launch 100-Ounce Silver Futures

Besides the crypto derivatives, CME Group announced it will launch a 100-Ounce Silver futures contract on the same February 9. They will be financially settled based on the daily settlement price of the global benchmark Silver futures contract and will be listed by and subject to the rules of COMEX.

Jin Hennig, Managing Director and Global Head of Metals at CME Group stated, “Silver is increasingly appealing to retail traders looking to diversify their exposure across a wider range of metals in the face of geopolitical uncertainty and the energy transition […] 100-Ounce Silver futures will improve access to a wider range of participants, enabling them to benefit from the liquidity and efficiencies that our futures markets provide.”

According to the company, the growing retail demand for CME Group’s metal futures drove record trading volumes in 2025. It was a record year for trading both Micro Gold futures (301K ADV) and Micro Silver futures (48K ADV). Clients traded over 6 million contracts in the 1-ounce Gold futures contract launched in January of last year.

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