CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced it plans to further expand its cryptocurrency derivatives offering with the addition of Micro Bitcoin Euro and Micro Ether Euro futures on March 18, pending regulatory review.

• The market for Bitcoin chops; initially falling ~20% post US spot ETF approval before rallying back over 35% to reclaim the $50k level not seen since 2021.
• Redemptions of Grayscale's GBTC seem to be at least partially responsible for the sell off, despite net positive inflows for the ETFs as a whole.
• Excitement continues to brew around the possibility of an Ethereum spot ETF in the coming months, despite Gensler stressing that this recent approval was specific to Bitcoin only. 

FalconX, the world's largest institutional digital asset prime broker, announces integration with Fusion Digital Assets, TP ICAP's FCA-registered UK cryptoasset exchange

• After over 10 years since the first application, the US SEC approves the first spot Bitcoin ETF for trading on 11th Jan. 
• Ethereum sees increased flows and price action as the market looks to capitalise on ETHs underperformance in light of ETF speculation. 
• TradFi moves further into the weeds of crypto, seeing institutions mining, minting stablecoins and tokenising funds. 

• Binance plead guilty to money laundering and settled with the DOJ; leading to the stepdown of Changpeng Zhao as CEO and $4.3 Billion to be paid.
• Bitcoin and the market as a whole responds well, with price action remaining bullish across the board
• However, the biggest winners are a handful of previously undervalued alts that have seen significant inflows. Such as, Solana rallying to just less than $70 with ecosystem tokens like BONK increasing 655% on the month.

The integration offers increased liquidity venues for institutional investors to trade digital assets

• Changpeng Zhao has agreed to step down as CEO of Binance after the exchange agreed to pay $4.3 billion to US authorities.
• JPMorgan says Binance’s settlement may see traditional finance firms accelerate their crypto land grab.

• The CME remains the go to for Bitcoin futures traders as open interest climbs above $4.1 billion.
• Binance continues to lag its highly regulated counterpart amid ongoing scrutiny from regulators and law enforcement.

Singapore – November 21, 2023 – Wintermute Asia Pte. Ltd (“Wintermute Asia”), the digital asset derivatives trading arm of the Wintermute Group, the leading algorithmic trading firm and liquidity provider in digital assets, today announced that it has executed its first options block trade through CME Group. The BTC/USD block was traded between Wintermute Asia and TP ICAP and was cleared by ABN AMRO Clearing Bank N.V.

• Bitcoin continues to strengthen in price and dominance due to global tensions and ETF approval hopes 
• Ether activity and price action continue to falter comparative to Bitcoin 
• Exchange dramas abound as Uniswap fee takes hold of the market and FTX court case comes to a head.