CME set February launch plan for ADA, LINK and XLM futures

CME Group announced on January 15, 2026 that it planned to list futures tied to Cardano’s ADA, Chainlink’s LINK and Stellar’s lumens on February 9, subject to regulatory review.

The announcement extended CME’s regulated cryptocurrency derivatives program beyond an existing lineup that included Bitcoin, Ether, XRP and Solana products. It was an institutional market-structure development rather than a protocol change: Cardano, Chainlink and Stellar did not alter their networks, and the proposed contracts had not begun trading on January 15.

This article is a newly researched reconstruction of the January 15 record, not a recovered copy of an article published on that date.

Standard and micro contracts

CME proposed two contract sizes for each asset. The standard ADA future represented 100,000 ADA, while the Micro ADA contract represented 10,000 ADA. The corresponding LINK contracts represented 5,000 LINK and 250 LINK. Standard and micro Lumens futures represented 250,000 and 12,500 lumens, respectively.

Those differences mattered because the smaller contracts reduced the amount of token exposure represented by one contract. The micro ratios were not uniform: Micro ADA was one-tenth of the standard ADA contract, while the smaller LINK and Lumens contracts were each one-twentieth of their standard versions.

CME presented the products as tools for obtaining exposure and managing price risk. That was the exchange’s stated commercial rationale, not evidence that the contracts already had customers, liquidity or reliable price discovery. No January 15 trading volume, open interest, bid-ask spread or settlement price existed because the contracts remained planned products.

Why the expansion mattered

Adding three more crypto assets to CME’s derivatives venue would give eligible market participants another way to hedge or express views through standardized, centrally cleared contracts. For institutions constrained by custody policies, counterparty limits or venue requirements, that structure differed materially from trading the underlying tokens on cryptocurrency exchanges.

The selected assets also represented distinct parts of the crypto market. ADA was associated with the Cardano smart-contract network, LINK with Chainlink’s oracle infrastructure and XLM with the Stellar payments network. Their inclusion indicated that CME saw sufficient demand to propose contracts beyond the largest two crypto assets, but it did not constitute an endorsement of the tokens or their respective protocols.

CME reported that its cryptocurrency futures recorded average daily volume of 272,200 contracts, representing $11.7 billion in notional value, during 2025. It also reported average open interest of 253,600 futures contracts, representing $21.4 billion in notional value. Those are CME’s calendar-2025, suite-wide figures; they predated the proposed ADA, LINK and XLM products and cannot be used to estimate demand for any of the new contracts.

The announcement arrived while U.S. regulated derivatives infrastructure was broadening its crypto coverage even as federal lawmakers continued debating digital-asset market structure. CME’s move did not resolve whether any underlying token was a security, determine the jurisdiction of every spot transaction or confer regulatory approval on the associated networks.

What remained conditional

The February 9 date was a plan, not a completed launch. CME explicitly made it contingent on regulatory review. The January 15 evidence therefore established the intended products and contract sizes, but not final authorization, successful implementation or subsequent trading activity.

Later confirmation

Commodity Futures Trading Commission records dated January 23, 2026 subsequently listed all six contracts as certified. CME later confirmed that the products began trading on February 9. Those later records verify that the plan was implemented, but they do not change the conditional status knowable on January 15 or establish that the products immediately developed material liquidity.