CME is letting traders bet on bitcoin volatility, not price, and two firms have already placed bets

CME’s bitcoin BTC$62,945.93 volatility index futures began trading last week, offering investors a new way to trade and hedge price volatility. DV Chain and Monarq Asset Management executed the first block trades, kicking off trading in the contracts.

These volatility contracts track the CME CF Bitcoin Volatility Index (BVX), which represents the market’s expectations for bitcoin volatility over four weeks. Their debut allows traders to take positions directly on expected price turbulence rather than just price direction.

That distinction matters because most derivatives, including futures, perpetual futures and options, require a view on where price is going. Volatility futures eliminate that complexity, letting traders express a view purely on how BTC will move in either direction.

That opens the door to a new set of hedging and portfolio strategies that were previously difficult to execute on regulated venues. Think of positioning for how much bitcoin might move around events like this week’s U.S. inflation data – traders can go long or short volatility depending on their outlook.

Shiliang Tang, CEO of Monarq, called the launch a positive step in broadening regulated volatility offerings.

“As bitcoin continues to mature into a more mainstream institutional asset class, the demand for sophisticated risk management instruments grows alongside it. Robust tools like CME Group Bitcoin Volatility futures are exactly what investors need to accurately express their market viewpoints and efficiently hedge their portfolios within a secure, transparent framework,” he said in the press announcement.

Monarq Asset Management is a institutional-focused quantitative and systematic digital asset investment firm managed by former executives from firms such as LedgerPrime, Tower Research, and BlockTower Capital. DV Chain is a liquidity and market-making service provider.

The launch of volatility futures expands CME’s existing product suite comprising bitcoin and ether standard and micro futures and options contracts. The platform’s crypto derivatives business has reached roughly 266,900 contracts year-to-date, up 38% year-on-year, while average daily open interest stands at roughly 274,500 contracts, up 18%.