CME Group, the derivatives exchange giant favored by Wall Street, said it will begin offering 24/7 trading for its cryptocurrency futures and options on May 29, a major milestone in how traditional institutions access crypto markets.

The move, the exchange said, aims to meet growing demand from professional investors who want to manage risk continuously even during weekends, when crypto volatility often spikes as institutional venues are closed.

The decision to open around the clock was driven by growth, said Tim McCourt, CME’s global head of equities and FX, adding that crypto derivatives across CME venues hit a record $3 trillion in notional volume last year.

"Client demand for risk management in the digital asset market is at an all-time high," he said.

'Violent price swings'

However, this move will have an even greater impact on how crypto trades on weekends.

While crypto markets have always been live around the clock, CME's derivatives — widely traded by hedge funds and institutions for their strict regulatory oversight — usually shut down on Friday evening and reopen on Sunday, while the spot market stays open 24/7.

That discrepancy contribute to the well-known "CME gaps," the empty price area between Friday's close and Sunday's open, leaving institutions exposed to weekend price swings without the ability to hedge.

Experts say CME's shift to always-on trading could reshape liquidity and trading dynamics across both institutional and retail crypto markets, especially around the weekends.

"The most violent price swings happen precisely when institutional venues are dark," said Bobby Ong, co-founder of CoinGecko. "CME's move is a structural acknowledgment of what CoinGecko data has shown for years."

He said liquidation cascades during the weekend were a "predictable consequence" of thin, fragmented liquidity, noting that "CME [is] finally closing that gap."

Less dramatic moves

What this will essentially do is make trading more seamless between weekdays and weekends.

Adam Haeems, head of asset management at Tesseract Group, said the change "closes one of the last structural gaps between crypto-native markets and regulated derivatives infrastructure."

Institutional flows that pause on Friday and restart on Sunday will continue uninterrupted, reducing the risk and cost of holding positions through weekends. He added that weekend volatility has been "a direct consequence of this structural mismatch," and continuous trading should help compress those price swings and narrow spreads.

However, this doesn't guarantee a total reduction of massive swings; rather, price action will likely be more gradual.

Haeems cautioned that simply keeping the venue open doesn’t guarantee deep liquidity. "Institutional desks may not staff weekend risk-taking at the same intensity as weekdays," he said. "The improvement will be real but gradual."

For retail traders, the change may mean less dramatic Monday price action.

"Tighter pricing and fewer of those jarring Monday-morning gap moves," said Haeems. "The CME gap has historically filled more than 90% of the time — retail traders who track futures structure will notice that signal fading."

Bitcoin as a macro risk proxy

Maxime Seiler, CEO of trading firm STS Digital, echoed that the change offers clear benefits to institutions, especially those wary of the forced liquidation mechanisms on crypto-native platforms.

"The ability to trade futures and options on CME without the risk of auto-deleveraging is a huge selling point,” he said.

He also pointed to a shift in how bitcoin may be used over weekends as a professional tool to hedge global risk events when other assets are not available to trade.

"With other markets closed, bitcoin could increasingly function as a proxy for broader macro risk, pricing in global events in real time."