CME Tells Cointelegraph They Consider $2.3M BTC Options Debut a Success

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is happy with the results of its Bitcoin options trading product launch on Jan. 13, according to CME Group's managing director and global head of equity index alternative investment products Tim McCourt.

First days of new options offering a success"We're very pleased with how day one went," McCourt told Cointelegraph in a Jan. 14 interview.

"Yesterday, we did a total of 55 options contracts, worth 275 Bitcoin," the managing director said.

"Each option is on one future, and one future is worth five Bitcoin at CME, so a little over $2 million in terms of notional value, which is great to see," he added.

As of the 2:40 EST interview, CME's Bitcoin options had already posted 15 contracts on Globex, CME's "Electronic trading system," McCourt said.

As plannedIn fall 2019, the Chicago-based exchange announced its plans to launch a Bitcoin options trading product early in 2020, based on CME's underlying Bitcoin futures trading product.

After receiving the green light from regulators, CME launched its Bitcoin options trading product on Jan. 13, 2020, Cointelegraph reported yesterday.

Years in the makingCME's Bitcoin options product has been a long time coming.

"It's something we've been talking about with our customers since the launch of Bitcoin futures," McCourt said.

At the height of crypto's largest bull market in December 2017, CME launched its cash-settled Bitcoin futures trading product as one of the mainstream financial world's first major entries into crypto exposure.