The balance of power in Bitcoin markets may be tilting further toward traditional finance as CME Group prepares to introduce round-the-clock derivatives trading.
CME’s move to 24/7 bitcoin futures later this year would remove a longstanding limitation that set it apart from crypto-native exchanges — weekend closures. For institutional investors, that change could be pivotal.
Karl Naim, Chief Commercial Officer at XBTO, believes uninterrupted access on a regulated platform could accelerate capital flows away from offshore venues.
“Traditional hedge funds want to trade instruments they already understand within infrastructure they trust,” Naim said. “If they can manage bitcoin exposure without changing systems or taking on unfamiliar counterparty risk, there’s little reason to look elsewhere.”
CME already leads the regulated bitcoin futures market in open interest, and its contracts underpin a significant share of hedging tied to U.S. spot ETFs. However, the exchange’s weekend shutdown historically created so-called pricing gaps, as crypto exchanges continued operating while CME was offline. That dynamic restricted institutions from adjusting positions during volatile periods.
Continuous trading would eliminate those gaps, allowing investors to hedge positions at any time and narrowing arbitrage spreads between regulated futures and offshore perpetual swaps. As pricing inefficiencies compress, institutions may no longer need to maintain exposure on crypto exchanges simply to ensure constant market access.
For compliance-driven allocators and sovereign investors, CME’s structure — complete with established clearinghouses and regulatory oversight — increasingly positions it as the default venue for bitcoin risk management.
Even leaders within the crypto exchange sector recognize the growing weight of regulated derivatives markets. Earlier this year, Hong Fang, president of OKX, suggested that digital asset derivatives volumes could eventually rival or surpass spot markets, reinforcing regulated platforms as anchors for global price discovery.
Institutions Take the Lead
According to Naim, the shift reflects bitcoin’s broader evolution. What began as a retail-driven, anti-establishment movement has matured into a market increasingly shaped by institutional capital.
Many large allocators first accessed bitcoin through spot ETFs before expanding into more advanced strategies such as futures trading. As a result, bitcoin’s price action now often mirrors broader macroeconomic sentiment.
In periods of geopolitical tension or market-wide risk aversion, bitcoin tends to trade in line with equities and other risk assets rather than as an isolated hedge.
The transition underscores a notable irony: while bitcoin was founded on principles of decentralization, the infrastructure supporting its largest flows is becoming more centralized within regulated financial institutions — a reflection of institutional capital’s preference for familiar, lower-risk market structures over crypto-native platforms.
