Catenaa, Thursday, September 24, 2026- CME Group plans to launch Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap futures on October 19, expanding its regulated cryptocurrency derivatives business as institutional demand moves beyond Bitcoin and Ether.
The contracts remain subject to regulatory review and will be offered in both standard and smaller Micro versions.
A standard Bitcoin Cash futures contract will represent 250 BCH, while the Micro version will cover 25 BCH.
Uniswap futures will represent 10,000 UNI per standard contract and 1,000 UNI in the Micro version.
The new products will give traders another way to gain exposure to the two crypto assets without directly holding their tokens.
They will also allow investors, trading firms and other market participants to hedge price risk through CME’s centrally cleared derivatives infrastructure.
The expansion comes as CME broadens its crypto business across a growing range of digital assets.
Its existing single-asset futures lineup includes Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana, Cardano, Chainlink, Stellar, Avalanche and Sui.
Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap would increase that list to 11 cryptocurrencies.
CME said demand for regulated tools covering highly traded alternative cryptocurrencies helped drive the decision.
Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group’s global head of cryptocurrency products, said the exchange sees increasing demand for broader tools to manage digital asset price risk.
The exchange is offering both standard and Micro contracts to allow traders to adjust position sizes according to their capital and risk requirements.
Micro futures have become an important part of CME’s crypto strategy because their smaller contract values make regulated derivatives accessible to a wider range of traders.
The move also comes after CME shifted its cryptocurrency futures and options business to continuous trading earlier this year.
CME began 24-hour, seven-day crypto derivatives trading on May 29, narrowing a long-standing gap between regulated derivatives markets and crypto spot markets that never close.
The system operates continuously apart from a scheduled weekly maintenance period.
More than 7,200 crypto futures and options contracts, representing about $50 million in notional value, changed hands during CME’s first weekend of continuous trading.
That shift allows investors to respond to cryptocurrency price movements during weekends rather than waiting for traditional derivatives markets to reopen.
The arrival of Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap also shows how regulated derivatives are extending further into cryptocurrencies outside the largest assets.
Bitcoin Cash emerged from a split in the Bitcoin blockchain in 2017 following disagreement over how the network should handle transaction capacity.
Its supporters favored larger blocks as a way to increase transaction throughput and reduce payment costs.
Uniswap represents a different part of the crypto market.
The protocol operates one of the best-known decentralized exchanges, allowing users to trade digital assets through smart contracts rather than a traditional centralized exchange.
UNI is the protocol’s governance token and allows holders to participate in decisions concerning parts of the Uniswap ecosystem.
Their addition follows several other altcoin futures launches by CME during 2026.
Cardano, Chainlink and Stellar futures were introduced in February. Avalanche and Sui contracts followed later in the year.
CME said those five newer products have generated more than $1 billion in total notional value so far in 2026.
Activity across the wider CME cryptocurrency derivatives business is much larger.
Crypto futures and options averaged 279,800 contracts per day during the first half of 2026, representing about $8.3 billion in daily notional value.
Average open interest reached 264,600 contracts, representing approximately $15.4 billion in notional exposure.
Those figures show regulated crypto derivatives developing into a sizeable part of the institutional digital asset market.
CME first entered cryptocurrency derivatives with Bitcoin futures in December 2017.
Ether futures followed in 2021, while products covering Solana, XRP and other cryptocurrencies were added as institutional participation widened.
The exchange’s model differs from offshore crypto derivatives platforms because contracts operate within US-regulated futures markets and use centralized clearing.
That structure allows institutions already active in conventional futures markets to gain crypto exposure through familiar trading, margin and clearing systems.
It can also reduce some of the counterparty risks associated with holding positions directly on cryptocurrency exchanges.
The planned BCH and UNI products arrive as US financial markets become increasingly receptive to digital asset products.
Crypto exchange-traded funds, regulated futures, tokenized securities and stablecoin-based settlement systems are moving closer to traditional financial infrastructure.
CME’s expansion also suggests institutional crypto demand is becoming less concentrated around Bitcoin and Ether.
The exchange’s newer futures cover payment-focused networks, smart-contract platforms, decentralized finance protocols and blockchain infrastructure projects.
That does not mean institutional demand is equally strong across every asset.
Trading volumes in newer altcoin futures remain much smaller than those in Bitcoin and Ether contracts.
But regulated derivatives can help establish price discovery and hedging infrastructure around assets before institutional participation reaches the scale seen in the largest cryptocurrencies.
If regulatory review is completed as planned, Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap futures will begin trading October 19 alongside CME’s existing cryptocurrency contracts.
Their launch would add two more assets to a derivatives market that is moving steadily toward the same always-open trading model as crypto itself.
