ICE Launches CoinDesk Index Futures, Eyes DeFi-Linked USDC Rate Products
HONG KONG — Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of the New York Stock Exchange, has launched cryptocurrency futures based on CoinDesk indices, marking another step in bringing digital asset exposure deeper into regulated markets. The contracts began trading Monday after being unveiled in early January.
The new offerings consist of cash-settled, U.S. dollar-denominated futures tied to seven CoinDesk benchmarks. These include broad-market contracts linked to the CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 5 indices, as well as single-asset futures tracking bitcoin, ether, solana, XRP and BNB.
Because the contracts are settled in cash rather than requiring delivery of the underlying tokens, they are geared toward institutional participants seeking streamlined crypto exposure without navigating custody and operational challenges associated with spot markets.
ICE’s next move is to introduce One Month CoinDesk Overnight Rates (CDOR) USDC futures, subject to regulatory approval. The planned contracts would reflect the annualized effective borrowing rate in decentralized finance (DeFi) markets, effectively translating onchain lending activity into a regulated derivatives format.
The proposed rate products would serve as a crypto equivalent to traditional overnight benchmarks such as SOFR, which underpin pricing across dollar-based lending markets. By listing these futures, ICE would expand crypto derivatives beyond price speculation into the realm of funding costs and liquidity expectations.
The exchange operator also underscored the growing footprint of CoinDesk indices, noting that tens of billions of dollars are benchmarked against them. The CoinDesk 20, constructed using a capped market-cap weighting methodology, is designed to represent a substantial portion of the digital asset market.
With index futures now live and rate products on the horizon, ICE is positioning itself to bridge traditional financial infrastructure with emerging onchain capital markets.
About The Author
More Stories
Robinhood falls short of Q4 revenue expectations as crypto downturn weighs on quarterly results.
Bithumb concedes that critical vulnerabilities left its internal infrastructure open to potential tampering.
Crypto’s latest downturn reflects turbulence in traditional financial markets rather than an industry-specific crisis.