CME Group and CF Benchmarks to Launch 11 New Cryptocurrency Reference Rates and Real-Time Indices on April 25

• Expanded suite of non-tradable reference rates and indices to capture over 90% of investible cryptocurrency market cap today

CHICAGO and LONDON, April 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, and CF Benchmarks, the leading provider of cryptocurrency benchmark indices, today announced plans to launch 11 new cryptocurrency reference rates and real-time indices, which will be calculated and published daily by CF Benchmarks, beginning April 25.

These reference rates and indices are not tradable futures products. They include the following:

"As the digital asset market continues to expand, there is an increasing demand for reliable, standardized cryptocurrency pricing information based on robust, regulated reference rates," said Tim McCourt, CME Group Global Head of Equity and FX Products. "These new benchmarks, which capture over 90% of the total investible cryptocurrency market cap today, are designed to allow traders, institutions and other users to confidently and more accurately manage cryptocurrency price risk, price portfolios or create structured products like ETFs."

CME CF Reference Rates and Real-Time Indices are based on robust methodologies that have regular expert oversight and are designed to meet the growing need for transparent, regulated and round-the-clock pricing.

Several leading crypto exchanges and trading platforms will provide pricing data for these new benchmarks, starting initially with Bitstamp, Coinbase, Gemini, itBit and Kraken, as well as LMAX Digital beginning May 3. Each coin will trade on a minimum of two of these constituent exchanges.

 "Extending the CME CF Cryptocurrency Reference Rates and Real Time Indices further underlines the commitment of both CF Benchmarks and CME Group to serving investors of all types with robust benchmark pricing across a wider range of cryptocurrency assets, said Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks. "This also further adds to the continued adoption of the digital asset class through regulated investment products and funds."

"Enhancing market infrastructure means a broader range of investors can easily engage in the digital asset class," said Juthica Chou, Head of OTC Options Trading at Kraken. "The launch of 11 new indices opens the door for traditional investors to gain exposure to a much broader range of cryptocurrencies through a suite of products they are already familiar with."

"Evolve's physical-crypto ETFs rely on CME CF Reference Rates to provide liquidity, tight tracking and reliable NAV for investors," says Elliot Johnson, Chief Investment Officer at Evolve ETFs. "We're very excited to see the CME CF index family expanding to lay the foundation for new, innovative ETFs in this highly coveted asset class."

"The transparency and robustness of the new CME CF Reference Rates enable a much broader range of products representing the diversity of crypto assets," said Joshua Lim, Head of Derivatives at Genesis Global Trading. "We're excited to be a liquidity partner on the variety of instruments that will be built on top of them."

Each of these new reference rates will provide the U.S. dollar price of each digital asset, published once-a-day at 4 p.m. London time, while each respective real-time index will be published once per second, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.

For more information on these products, please visit www.cmegroup.com/cryptobenchmarks.   

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec and EBS are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD and EBS Group LTD, respectively. Dow Jones, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and S&P are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and S&P/Dow Jones Indices LLC, as the case may be, and have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CF Benchmarks is the leading provider of cryptocurrency benchmark indices, authorised and regulated by the UK FCA under the EU BMR. Composed of market data from six constituent exchanges, its benchmark indices are provided through public methodologies and transparent governance, for tracking, valuing and settling risk in cryptocurrency financial services and products. CF Benchmarks' indices have been used to settle over $500bn of cryptocurrency derivative contracts listed for trading by CME Group and Kraken Futures.

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SOURCE CME Group

CME Group Media Contacts: Chris Grams, 312.930.3435, Matt Southerlan, 312.622.8951, news@cmegroup.com, www.cmegroup.mediaroom.com; or CME Group Investor Contact: John Peschier, 312.930.8491; or CF Benchmarks Media Contact: press@kraken.com