CME Trading Halt Paralyzes Bitcoin Futures Market for Hours
A technical problem led to the complete suspension of trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Friday – with tangible consequences for crypto traders.
Trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) was completely halted for several hours on Friday. The cause was a cooling problem in the CyrusOne data centers, as confirmed by a CME Group spokesperson[1].
The entire Globex trading platform was affected, including Bitcoin and Ether derivatives. With open interest of approximately $12.5 billion, the CME is the largest trading venue for Bitcoin futures according to Coinglass – ahead of Binance[1].
For institutional investors, the outage is particularly critical, as the CME serves as the primary regulated marketplace for global Bitcoin price discovery. Market makers who typically hedge their positions through CME futures were forced to withdraw their liquidity from spot exchanges. This led to widened spreads and higher costs for traders[1].
Analysts warned of erratic price movements due to the failure of a central liquidity source. The incident fuels discussion around decentralized derivatives exchanges such as Hyperliquid, which operate through globally distributed validators and have no central points of failure – albeit with significantly lower liquidity[1].
Sources
- [1]btc-echo.de
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