The world’s leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group, announced plans to introduce two new reference rates for Bitcoin and Ether in-specific for Asia-Pacific in collaboration with a leading provider of crypto benchmark indices, CF Benchmarks.
CME Group said these two reference rates, the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate APAC and the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate APAC, would be launched on Sept. 11. Everyday at 4 p.m. Hong Kong time, these two reference rates for the U.S. dollar price of the two cryptocurrencies will be provided to investors and institutions in Asia.
The Global Head of Cryptocurrency Products at CME Group, Giovanni Vicioso, said, “These new reference rates are designed to meet the ever-evolving needs of global participants in the growing digital asset space.”
Viciso clarifies that this year, 37% of its crypto volume has traded during non-U.S. hours, with 11% coming from APAC. He also added, “these APAC reference rates will allow market participants to more accurately and precisely hedge cryptocurrency price risk with timing more closely aligned to their portfolios,”
CME and CF benchmarks have produced several reference rates, like the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) and the CME CF-Ether Dollar Reference Rate (ETHUSD_RR), published at 4 p.m. London Times. Two additional reference rates, the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate New York and the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate New York, also published at 4 p.m. New York Times. The new non-tradable rates will complement these existing reference rates.