Singapore – Institutional investors are quickly embracing the future of CME And Solana Both were released earlier this year with the steady growth of Bitcoin. and ether Derivatives, according to Tim McCourt, Exchange’s global head of equity and FX products.
Speaking at the ongoing Token2049 conference, Coindesk attended, McCourt said the total for Crypto Futures Open Open Inter, a key indicator of institutional activity, has doubled year-on-year, and is now at $3.0-35 billion. Importantly, this growth is not driven solely by Bitcoin.
CME’s cash-established futures have long served for institutions who want to be exposed to cryptocurrency through regulated products without directly owning tokens.
Futures contracts are standardized to a binding contract between two parties to buy and sell assets at a price set on a specific future date. Open profit refers to the number of always active contracts, often expressed in dollar value.
“Looking at the new futures that we’ve introduced recently this year, XRP and Sol, they’re also enjoying institutional adoption with open interest at record highs,” McCourt said during the panel.
SOL and XRP Surge will be $1 billion
The standard Solana futures contract, in the size of 500 Sol, debuted in mid-March and surpassed the conceptual open interest of $1 billion in August. Payment-focused XRP-related futures crossed that threshold in August just three months after they began trading at the standard contract size of 50,000 XRP.
“The speed at which Solana has accumulated open interest is really interesting. It took Sol about five months to hit a billion. [OI] Mark compared to ether, which took about 8 months. Meanwhile, BTC took three years,” McCourt said.
He also noted record-breaking activities in both ether futures and options. As of Tuesday, open interest in ether futures contracts of the size of 50 ETH was $9.05 billion, reaching a lifetime peak of $10.42 billion in August.
Ether Futures began trading on CME in early 2021. Open interest in ether options also hit a record high of over $1 billion in September.
“The crypto is hot, but the ether is certainly hot in CME. We see record interest, record volumes in both standard and microsized contracts,” McCourt said.
CME futures contribute to price discovery
The availability of regulated crypto futures, along with the debut of Spot ETFs in the US, has provided greater legitimacy and transparency to the market, attracting more institutional capital and increasing liquidity across the market.
CME cash setting futures allow large investors to hedge risk, infer and establish arbitrage play, and effectively manage net exposure.
Therefore, these futures contribute to price discovery, reduce volatility through orderly trading mechanisms, paving the way for wider adoption of digital assets within traditional markets.
Stubcoin as a traditional bank partner
The panel also includes discussions on the impact of ETFS and Stablecoins. These include insights from Binance CEO Richard Teng, Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitise Asset Management, and Heath Tarbert, president of Circle, publisher of USDC, the world’s second largest stubcoin.
Tarbert said Stablecoins are ideal partners for traditional banks and emphasize the importance of legal and regulatory clarity.
He adds that Stablecoins like USDC can help banks integrate and deliver tokenized versions of their lending products, and emphasizes that these dollar-covered tokens are not bank competitors, but pathways to create new financial products.
Horsley said 2025 marked the beginning of a mainstream era of cryptography, while Teng highlighted various waves of institutional interest.