The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is gearing up to introduce spot trading in Bitcoin, in response to growing demand for the leading digital asset on Wall Street, the Financial Times. reported on May 16.
CME is the world’s largest BTC futures trading medium and is in talks with crypto traders to set up a regulated marketplace for spot BTC trading. The platform is expected to operate through EBS, a Swiss currency trading platform known for its strict regulations on crypto asset trading.
The introduction of spot trading for BTC on CME would allow traders to participate in basic trades. This trading strategy aims to take advantage of the small price differences present on the futures contracts and the underlying spot BTC.
While details of the trading platform have yet to be finalized, CME’s potential entry highlights the continued interest of major Wall Street players in the crypto sector.
This development follows the SEC’s approval of Spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) in January, signaling the increasing adoption and integration of digital assets into traditional financial markets.
Recent SEC filings from several Wall Street financial institutions, such as Morgan Stanley and Millennium Management, show that many of these companies have exposure to crypto-related investment products. Vetle Lunde, senior analyst at K33 Research said.
“According to 13F reporting, as of March 31, 937 professional firms were invested in U.S. spot ETFs. By comparison, gold ETFs had 95 professional companies invested in their first quarter (Bitwise). Retail owns a majority of the float. Professional investors had an exposure of $11.06 billion at the end of the first quarter, representing 18.7% of the BTC ETF AUM.”
Meanwhile, CME’s entry into Bitcoin spot trading could provide significant competition for Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, which is currently under regulatory scrutiny worldwide. Binance was the leading Bitcoin futures platform globally before CME’s surge in activity.
According to Kaiko factsBinance accounts for 56% of BTC spot trading, followed by Coinbase and Bybit with 10.1% and 10.5% respectively.