By Suzanne McGee
(Reuters) -CME Group said on Friday that it plans to roll out futures contracts on cryptocurrency Solana on March 17, pending regulatory review.
The exchange said it expects to debut two contracts, one for 500 Solana coins and a “micro-sized” contract for 25 Solana.
“We are responding to increasing client demand for a broader set of regulated products to manage cryptocurrency price risk,” said Giovanni Vicioso, global head of cryptocurrency products at CME.
If the products get the regulatory stamp of approval, the launch would clear the way for approvals of exchange-traded funds tied to Solana.
The first filings seeking approval by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission to launch ETFs tied to the spot price of Solana were made in June 2024 by VanEck and digital assets manager 21Shares. Most recently, Franklin Templeton made a similar filing last Friday.
The SEC may want to see several months’ worth of trading in a new Solana futures contract before approving those ETFs, said Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, a crypto indexing firm.
The decision “significantly increases” the likelihood of an approval, Chung said.
“A regulated futures market has been the SEC’s primary pre-requisite to approve a spot crypto ETF.”
That is because it brings at least part of the trading in a cryptocurrency under the purview of U.S. regulators, giving them confidence that they will be able to identify anyone who attempts to manipulate the market, Chung added.
Asset management companies have filed a slew of applications to launch ETFs tied not only to Solana but several other crypto tokens, including XRP and Litecoin. That wave of new filings has grown in number since the U.S. presidential election last November, analysts have noted. The crypto industry widely views Trump as a crypto-friendly president and last month hailed his moves to overhaul digital asset regulations.
(Reporting by Suzanne McGee in New York)
