 
 
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group’s new options tied to Ripple’s XRP and Solana (SOL) futures went live on Monday, giving traders in the United States a new way to speculate on price swings and manage risk.
Key market participants, such as Wintermute, Galaxy, Cumberland DRW, and SuperState, carried out the initial trades for the options.
CME Lists Options On SOL And XRP Futures
CME’s users can now trade options on SOL, Micro SOL, XRP, and Micro XRP futures, across daily, monthly, and quarterly expiries.
Options contracts are financial instruments that give investors the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price. A call option gives the right to buy, while a put confers the right to sell.
The debut of SOL and XRP options reflects how “market participants increasingly are looking to manage their exposure and pursue new opportunities across a wider range of crypto instruments,” Giovanni Vicioso, global head of cryptocurrency products at CME, said in a statement.
 
“With the deep liquidity we’ve built in our Solana and XRP futures markets, these new options provide traders with additional tools to further enhance their growing cryptocurrency investment and hedging strategies. We are pleased with the early support we’ve seen from a wide range of clients for these new contracts,” Vicioso continued.
What The Launch Means For SOL, XRP
According to the CME announcement, the first trade involving options for XRP futures, executed as a block trade, happened on Sunday between market maker Wintermute and crypto asset manager Superstate. Meanwhile, the inaugural trade involving options for SOL futures occurred on Monday and was executed between institutional crypto firm Galaxy Digital and crypto trading firm Cumberland DRW.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the Biden-Harris administration claimed that both XRP and Solana were securities in controversial lawsuits, but the CME’s launch further legitimizes their status as non-securities.
According to Ethan Ren, the head of options at Wintermute, CME’s introduction of options for Solana and XRP futures is a sign of a sector continuing to mature.
“The launch marks an important extension of listed crypto derivatives beyond BTC and ETH, reflecting growing sophistication in how market participants manage exposure,” Ren opined. “We see this as a positive signal for the continued evolution and depth of crypto options markets.”
Source: https://zycrypto.com/cftc-regulated-options-tied-to-xrp-and-solana-futures-finally-go-live-on-cme/