CME Group in More DeFi Products Amid Crypto Downturns 

  Introduction

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is giving the Blockchain based industry renewed hope ever since cryptocurrency exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy, wiping out billions 0f dollars of customer funds and investor funds.

After a major crypto exchange bailed from the non-binding agreement to save the sinking FTX, the Sam Bankman-Fried founded firm faced a bank-run and finally filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 on November 11, 2022.

CF Benchmarks and CME Group are introducing institutional-grade tools for the price discovery of a few DeFi protocols. CME Group is a US based company. It is the world’s largest financial derivatives exchange.

According to yesterday’s CME Group statement, on December 19, Aave, Curve and Synthetix are ready to be launched on new real-time indices and reference rates. A reference rate is considered to be a benchmark used to set other interest rates. 

According to the official website, the CME CF reference rates aggregate trade flow of major cryptocurrencies spot exchanges during specific calculation space into a one time in a day reference rate of U.S. dollar price of the respective cryptocurrencies.

LMAX Digital, Kraken, Gemini, Bitstamp and Coinbase will provide the price information. The DeFi tokens  will be available from December 19 onwards – CME CF Aave-Dollar Reference Rate and real-time index, with the Ticker symbol of AAVEUSD_RR and AAVEUSD_RTI respectively . Similar to it, are Curve and Synthetix.

CME Group is committed to raising open standards, cultivating the highest standards, diverse participation and protocols as the crypto industry and the blockchain tech improves. Uniswap, a decentralized exchange (DEX) launched almost 11 new cryptocurrencies reference rates and real-time indexes in April this year.

What is their Next Step?

As stated by Giovanni Vicioso, CME’s global head of crypto products, the three new benchmarks contribute to over 40% of the total value-locked (TVL), along with the Uniswap reference rate and Index, of the DeFi protocols that runs on Ethereum.

Vicioso stated, “These rates are designed to provide traders, institutions and other users transparency and price discovery across a much broader range of tokens, allowing them to confidently and more accurately value cryptocurrency sector specific portfolios and manage price risk around various blockchain-based projects.”

According to the official website, CF Benchmarks is a UK FCA regulated benchmark administrator, and is also the leading cryptocurrency Index Provider. Such indices can be used as a reference for regulated financial products. CF Benchmarks is also best known for its reference rates of Bitcoin and Ether, developed by CME Group for digital assets futures contracts. 

The CF Benchmarks’ CEO Sui Chung said, “Although it’s winter, we’re fielding ever more calls from traditional financial institutions who are either contemplating launching a product in the space or have actually decided that they are going to do something — and obviously want to talk about licensing our indices and understanding the methodologies.”

Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.

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