CME sets June 8 for Nasdaq-backed crypto index futures covering seven assets in first weighted contract

CME Group plans to launch Nasdaq CME Crypto Index futures on June 8 as the exchange's first market-cap-weighted crypto futures product, pending regulatory review, the company announced Wednesday.

The contracts will be settled in U.S. dollars to the Nasdaq CME Crypto Settlement Price Index, which, as of May 14, tracks bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK), and lumens. Both micro and standard sizes will be available, giving market participants a single contract for broad-based exposure to the top cryptocurrencies by market cap.

Giovanni Vicioso, CME's global head of cryptocurrency products, said the new contracts would offer clients a regulated way to gain "broad-based exposure to the overall crypto market."

Average daily volume across CME's crypto futures suite is up 43% year-to-date, he added.

Sean Wasserman, head of index product management at Nasdaq, framed the futures as "a natural extension of how index-based frameworks support market development over time," citing growing institutional demand for benchmarks that carry the governance and transparency standards expected in other asset classes.

The June 8 target is notably a reschedule. Plans for index futures linked to the Nasdaq CME Crypto Index were first disclosed in early March alongside CME's launch of single-name ADA, LINK, and XLM contracts, with a mid-March go-live window that passed without the product launching.

CME has said its broader crypto futures suite already covers more than 75% of total crypto market capitalization, as The Block reported.