The CME’s staging website indicated that investors could soon access futures contracts for Solana and Ripple’s XRP.

Solana (SOL) and Ripple (XRP) futures trading is set to debut on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange platform on Feb. 10, according to a supposed CME subdomain.

Bloomberg exchange-traded fund analyst, Eric Balchunas, noted that the update appeared on the “beta.cmegroup” website, which stated that the two products were pending regulatory approval.

Fellow ETF expert James Seyffart also emphasized that the news wasn’t shared via official channels, advising caution until the exchange posts confirmation. “Honestly, if this is fake, it’s a pretty good fakeout. I’m waiting for CME to officially confirm this via press release or their actual website though,” Seyffart wrote on X.

Several financial juggernauts, including JPMorgan and Standard Chartered, believe that more ETFs will go live in 2025. Analysts have predicted up to $14 billion in new cash flow into SOL and XRP products if regulators give the green light.

Issuers have filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission to bring these products to market, although roadblocks emerged last year. Industry sentiment suggests that regulatory clarity over SOL’s security status will be a deciding factor. However, optimism remains due to a new pro-crypto administration expected under President Donald Trump.

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For crypto to mature fully, regulated derivatives are non-negotiable.

Derivatives already comprise 70-75% of crypto transaction volumes, with institutional players leading the charge. While there is a growing number of regulated offerings, the majority of the volume – about 95% – happens in “offshore” venues, meaning in unregulated or lightly regulated jurisdictions. This exposes investors to risks like market manipulation and fraud, and leaves consumers with a lack of protections.

Luckily, there are a growing number of pathways, particularly in Europe, for crypto exchanges to meet the demands of risk-averse institutional investors whose primary concern is compliance, security and regulation.

What We Can Learn From Market History

Historically, spot markets have served as foundational liquidity sources and initial price discovery venues. As markets mature, derivatives markets often take the lead by incorporating broader information and future expectations. This transition has already been observed in commodities and equities markets globally, signaling a shift towards more advanced trading strategies — a key indicator of a maturing market.

Similarly, in the crypto space, for a mature and balanced crypto market, it is imperative to have access to both spot and derivatives trading. Futures and options will play — and have always played — an essential role in managing risk, hedging and enhancing capital efficiency. They are crucial for attracting sustained institutional participation, allowing capital efficiency and affording a wide array of trading strategies.

However, only regulated exchanges will be able to provide the security and compliance essential for large financial clients. For crypto exchanges to offer E.U.-regulated crypto derivatives like perpetual swaps, getting a MiFID license is a must. There’s no doubt about the growing demand for derivatives — about $3 trillion. MiFID brings the clarity and protections that crypto markets desperately need, giving us oversight that aligns with traditional financial services. This boosts market integrity and helps curb fraud.

Regulated exchanges can attract a wider range of institutional clients with demand for crypto derivatives. And they can become sources of innovation. The growing appetite for sophisticated products like perpetual swaps reflects the maturation of trading strategies, provided they come with oversight. Effectively leveraging these tools is critical to promoting market integrity and creating sustainable yield opportunities.

Managing the Real Institutional Risks

As we have seen in 2024, hedge funds and family offices are diversifying beyond Bitcoin and Ether, increasingly focusing on stablecoins, derivatives and emerging products. These players know that all markets have volatility, and trading comes with inherent risks – and crypto is no different. Rapid market shifts can quickly transform profitable positions into losses. Derivatives, in general, carry more inherent risk than spot markets due to factors like leverage and complexity, as their value is derived from underlying assets.

Access alone is insufficient. While regulated exchanges offer compliant crypto derivative products, they cannot shield traders from potential losses. They can only provide defenses against risky practices, abuses and bad actors.

Compliance is the next essential piece of the decentralized, cross-border landscape of crypto, where regulatory gaps can amplify risks. Regulatory bodies in reputable jurisdictions are implementing stricter standards for platforms offering crypto derivatives, requiring exchanges to register, maintain sufficient capital, and adopt robust anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) practices.

Custody has matured the most since the last bull run in terms of compliance.

Institutions need custodians that combine technical expertise in securely holding crypto assets with rigorous compliance akin to traditional asset management. Leading custodians bridge this gap through secure storage, operational transparency, and robust safeguards, thereby reducing risks associated with hacks or technical failures.

The result has been institutions are gaining confidence in the crypto market now that regulated custodians can align with their operational standards.

The industry must learn from past mistakes. Focusing solely on venues for liquidity that lack adequate licensing in reputable jurisdictions, developed compliance practices and other trust factors can lead to disastrous consequences. Web pages about “Proof of Reserves” mean nothing without other safeguards in place. Global financial audits (preferably from a Big 4 accounting firm), ISO and SOC2 designations are exceedingly important for both institutional and retail users to consider and prioritize when they choose a crypto platform or partner.

Today’s institutional players seek a marketplace that effectively balances spot liquidity with derivatives for risk management and capital efficiency. The complementary roles of spot and derivatives markets can create a stable and growing crypto ecosystem where transparency, security, and compliance facilitate broader participation.

Therefore, exchanges must prioritize regulated products and secure custody if they want to offer comprehensive trading options for institutional investors moving into 2025.

Trump family-backed WLFI’s recent $9.84 million wBTC purchase raises its total crypto holdings to $365 million.

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto project tied to the Trump family, has intensified its aggressive push into digital assets.

Over the past three days, the fund has invested a staggering $178.2 million across six tokens, including Ethereum (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), TRON (TRX), Aave (AAVE), Chainlink (LINK), and Ethena (ENA).

The latest on-chain data shows that on Jan. 22, WLFI spent $9.84 million to purchase 94.94 wBTC, taking advantage of a price drop. This came just a day after the fund poured $2.65 million into 10.81 million TRX.

The election of Donald Trump promises a new era for digital assets characterized by greater regulatory certainty and a surge in market activity. The question now is whether this shift is sustainable, or a temporary reaction to the political climate.

According to CCData’s latest Exchange Review report, aggregated spot and derivatives volumes, the most common measure evaluated for market participation, recorded a new yearly high in 2024, greatly exceeding the previous record set in 2021 ($75 trillion vs $64 trillion). With the election driving market activity and speculation, November and December were both record-breaking months for volumes, with $10.51 trillion and $11.31 trillion in monthly volumes, respectively. For context, the 2024 average (the biggest year on record) was roughly $6.4 trillion.

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Concurrently, stablecoins reached a total market cap of $210.1 billion, its highest ever point, on inauguration day, according to DeFiLlama. This reflects a YTD increase of 3.3% thus far, on the back of improved liquidity conditions across both centralized and decentralized exchanges, supporting the influx of fresh volumes seen in the last few months.

Assets “made in the USA” have been doing particularly well. These have been an outlier since the election, where a permissive regulatory environment, and the promise of more favourable conditions for US-based assets, have generated significant investor interest and speculation. Coins such as XRP, SOL, XLM and ALGO, which have a strong U.S.- affiliation, have seen outsized returns. Per CCData, the basket associated with these coins is up over 360%, outpacing the market by a sizeable margin. This marks an about-turn from the previous administration’s regulatory clampdown, which kept these under scrutiny for many years as they were ultimately deemed securities by the SEC.

Whether this unprecedented growth continues will depend heavily on the new Trump administration’s execution of its promises on a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, incentives for domestic bitcoin mining, and other issues. The broader market may also benefit as we enter into the expansionary phase of the bitcoin four-year historical cycle, which tends to see explosive growth in the final year.

It will be interesting to see whether this new administration will impact the market cycles to which the cryptocurrency sector has grown accustomed, or whether it will mark a significant departure from historical trends.