Coinbase Shares Slide On Rumor Of CME Spot Bitcoin Plans

Global leading derivatives exchange and clearing house the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has plans to offer spot bitcoin trading to clients, based on news reports on Thursday. According to a report by the Financial Times, traders have discussed wanting a regulated platform to trade BTC with the exchange. The markets appear to be taking the reports seriously. Coinbase’s share price fell by nearly 8% Thursday, on the back of the CME reports and have yet to recover to their previous position.

Coinbase shares dipped on news of the proposed CME move. Source MSN

 The CME is a leading platform for trading Bitcoin futures and options contracts, but in the spot market off-shore, unregulated exchanges like Binance and OKX dominate. It is often logical for a derivatives exchange to also offer spot trading because it allows traders to manage complex multi-leg hedging strategies within the same platform. Offshore exchanges like Binance and Bybit offer users both spot and derivatives for this reason. 

Large institutions that utilize exchanges like the CME will often deploy hedging strategies to remain market-neutral like offsetting selling calls by buying spot or longing perpetuals. For many traders on the CME, the only way to utilize a strategy like this is to buy spot with Coinbase or turn to a risky offshore exchange. The CME listing spot BTC is a step towards making the regulated Bitcoin trading ecosystem more efficient.

It is being reported that a spot crypto trading business could be run through the EBS currency trading venue in Switzerland. The new spot-enabled version of the CME is set to challenge Coinbase’s supremacy as the leading US-regulated crypto and Bitcoin exchange.