Bitcoin (BTC), once hailed as an anti-establishment asset and antithesis to Wall Street, may now bend to sharp traders from those same floors. Trading in the leading cryptocurrency is steadily shifting toward CME Group, and the exchange’s move to 24/7 derivatives later this year could cement its role as the dominant venue for institutional crypto risk.
The change removes one of the last advantages held by crypto exchanges: nonstop market access. “You'll see more traditional hedge fund managers getting more into the asset class, because they'll be able to trade it on instruments they know, without having to upgrade their tech or move their signals,” Karl Naim, Chief Commercial Officer at XBTO, told CoinDesk. “Why would they want to take a counterparty risk of an entity they don't know?”
CME already leads regulated futures; weekend gaps closing
CME leads regulated bitcoin futures markets by open interest, and its contracts underpin much of the hedging activity tied to U.S. spot ETFs. Until now, however, trading paused over the weekend, producing the well-known “CME gaps” and leaving institutional investors unable to adjust positions while offshore exchanges continued operating.
Around-the-clock trading removes that constraint. Institutions that once relied solely on ETFs or avoided weekend exposure will be able to hedge continuously, tightening arbitrage windows between prices for regulated futures and offshore perpetual swaps. As those gaps disappear, so too does the need for large allocators to maintain exposure on crypto exchanges simply for access.
For institutions that prioritize regulatory clarity and established clearinghouses, CME begins to look less like an alternative and more like the default. Even crypto exchange executives are aware of this. In January, OKX President Hong Fang wrote in a CoinDesk op-ed that crypto derivatives trading could one day rival or even surpass spot volumes on major global exchanges, making U.S. regulated volatility markets an even stronger anchor for bitcoin price discovery worldwide.
For Naim, the shift reflects a broader evolution in how capital enters bitcoin. What began as a grassroots activism by retail traders chasing BTC as an alternative to Wall Street has flipped upside down, with traditional institutions now calling the shots. “Today we speak to a lot of the sovereigns, a lot of the institutions. They go for what they know,” he said, describing allocators that first accessed the asset through spot ETFs before considering more complex strategies.