CME Ethereum Futures To Launch Monday 8, Will it Help ETH Price?

Ethereum price hit a new all-time high at $1,760 ahead of its Futures launch this Monday. The CME Group that launched Bitcoin futures back in 2018, has announced the start of its new Ether futures this Monday 8, February. According to the official announcement, CME will introduce Ethereum futures because of its strong customer demand.

The trading of Ether futures is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The product specifications include 50 ether per contract unit and trading hours as listed below:

CME Globex: Sunday – Friday 6:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET (5:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. CT) with a 60-minute break each day beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET (4:00 p.m. CT)
CME ClearPort: 6:00 p.m. Sunday to 6:45 p.m. Friday ET (5:00 p.m. – 5:45 p.m. CT) with a 15-minute maintenance window between 6:45 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. ET (5:45 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. CT) Monday – Thursday.

Are Ethereum futures good or bad for ETH price?

So far, Ethereum price has seen a massive rally to new all-time highs, however, the entire market has been extremely bullish so it’s difficult to assess if this recent run happened thanks to CME futures. Nonetheless, the Bitcoin Futures volume has exploded in the past several months reaching up to $4.7 billion per day.

Clearly, Ethereum Futures contract will open the doors to a lot of investors interested in the smart-contracts giant. The exposure can’t be bad for Ethereum price. However, when Bitcoin Futures contract launched, several analysts stated that it caused the digital asset to crash significantly.

The problem with this theory is that, before the launch of CME Bitcoin Futures, it was extremely hard to short Bitcoin. In 2021, there are dozens of exchanges that allow investors to short Ethereum.

There are several key differences between Futures and ETFs. The table below was created by CME Group to showcase them.

Ethereum price has defended critical level once again

On the daily chart, Ethereum bulls have once again defended a crucial support level, the 12-EMA. Throughout this rally, Ethereum has managed to stay above the 26-EMA.

ETH/USD daily chart – TradingView

Since holding the 12-EMA at $1,500, ETH price is already up by more than 5% and on its way to a new all-time high as there is almost no resistance ahead. The Eth2 deposit contract has almost reached 3 million ETH locked while the amount of ETH locked inside DeFi remains at around 7.6 million.