CME Group launched spot-quoted XRP and Solana futures, adding the smallest crypto contracts in its suite and designed to trade closer to real-time market prices.
CME Group first introduced cash-settled Solana (SOL) futures on 17 de mar. de 2025, benchmarked to the CME CF Solana-Dollar Reference Rate, followed by cash-settled XRP futures on 19 de may. de 2025 available in standard (50.000 XRP) and micro (2.500 XRP) contract sizes and benchmarked to the CME CF XRP-Dollar Reference Rate. Options on those futures — covering SOL, Micro SOL, XRP and Micro XRP with daily, monthly and quarterly expiries — began trading on 13 de oct. de 2025.
Since the earlier launch of spot-quoted Bitcoin and Ethereum futures in junio, those contracts registered over 1,3 millones de contratos negociados, signalling demand for spot-linked instruments.
Spot-quoted XRP and Solana futures are priced to mirror spot market rates, feature longer-dated expiries that reduce frequent contract rollovers, and were introduced as the exchange’s smallest crypto contracts to broaden accessibility for both professional and retail participants.
Market impact and trading implications
The expansion reflects rising institutional activity: open interest for SOL and XRP futures reportedly passed 1.000.000.000 in aggregate within months of their introductions, a pace that outpaced some previous altcoin futures rollouts. These products are intended to provide capital-efficient exposure and more precise hedging; the longer expiries lower roll-related costs for active strategies and the product set supports multi-venue hedging and options overlays.
CME’s spot-quoted contracts also include Trading at Settlement (TAS), a feature that lets traders execute at the official settlement price and can improve execution certainty for managers hedging ETF exposures. Definition: Trading at Settlement (TAS) is an execution mechanism that allows trades to be done at the published settlement price to limit slippage around settlement. Definition: open interest is the total number of outstanding derivative contracts that have not been settled and is used to gauge market participation and liquidity.
Operational takeaways for traders and managers: the micro contract sizes increase granularity for position sizing; options on micro and standard contracts broaden strategies for skew, hedging and income generation; and rapid OI growth can amplify both liquidity and the risk of levered moves, so risk managers should monitor position concentrations across expiries.
CME’s stepwise rollout — cash-settled futures, options, and now spot-quoted contracts — widens institutional-grade tools for XRP and Solana exposure and reduces some operational frictions for hedgers.
