Chicago-based derivatives exchange CME Group is moving to deepen its exposure to altcoins as demand for regulated crypto products continues to expand in the United States.
CME Group said Thursday that it plans to list futures contracts tied to Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK) and Stellar (XLM) on Feb. 9, pending regulatory approval.
The proposed contracts would broaden CME’s crypto derivatives suite regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which includes futures and options linked to Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and Solana (SOL). The exchange said the new offerings are aimed at meeting growing interest from market participants seeking exposure to digital assets.
CME plans to offer both standard and micro futures contracts for each altcoin, with position sizes ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 ADA, 250 to 5,000 LINK and 12,500 to 250,000 XLM.
Futures allow traders to gain price exposure or hedge risk without holding the underlying tokens, and the inclusion of micro contracts suggests the products are intended to be accessible to retail traders, subject to broker support.
Martin Franchi, CEO of NinjaTrader, a US-based retail futures trading platform, said digital assets are reaching a “global inflection point” as they become more integrated into investor portfolios, adding that the new contracts reflect growing demand from retail traders for regulated crypto futures and broader product choice.
The announcement follows a recent move by CME Group and the Nasdaq Stock Exchange to unifiy their crypto benchmarks, rebranding the Nasdaq Crypto Index as the Nasdaq-CME Crypto Index. The index tracks the price of BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, LINK, ADA and Avalanche (AVAX).
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Altcoin futures inch into US-regulated markets
CME’s move to add futures tied to three altcoins comes as the US crypto futures market remains largely concentrated around BTC and ETH, with only limited expansion into contracts linked to other digital assets emerging in 2025.
Coinbase offers CFTC-regulated futures tied to BTC and ETH through its Coinbase Derivatives Exchange, which launched in June 2023 for institutional clients before expanding access to smaller, retail-oriented contracts in May 2025.
Kraken, another major US-based exchange, launched a domestic derivatives platform in July 2025 that allows traders to access cryptocurrency futures listed on CME Group. While the company offers perpetual futures contracts for several altcoins on its global platform, US users are limited to CME-listed products.
Derivatives exchange Bitnomial has taken a more direct approach to altcoin futures. In March, the company launched CFTC-regulated futures tied to Ripple’s XRP in the US.
On Wednesday, Bitnomial launched the first regulated monthly futures contracts tied to Aptos (APT). The contracts are initially available to institutional clients, with retail access expected in the coming weeks.
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