Traders can now access equity, commodity, and FX futures alongside crypto contracts.<\/p>\n
Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken<\/a> on Thursday revealed it has added support for CME futures contracts, allowing users to trade traditional markets such as equities and commodities alongside crypto assets.<\/p>\n The new offering is available through Kraken Derivatives US, which connects users directly to CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX via a regulated futures commission merchant. The integration lets traders access contracts linked to the S&P 500, Nasdaq, gold, oil, and major currency pairs. This is in addition to existing Bitcoin (BTC<\/a>), Ether (ETH<\/a>), and Solana (SOL<\/a>) futures.<\/p>\n The platform is available to both retail and professional clients, the blog post<\/a> explained, offering different market data access levels and a standard fee rate of 0.5 basis points per trade. <\/p>\n Kraken\u2019s expansion into CME futures underscores the growing push by both crypto and traditional finance platforms to consolidate services onto a single platform<\/a>. It also reflects a broader convergence between crypto and conventional markets.<\/p>\n The move comes as exchanges are increasingly diversifying beyond digital assets. A recent report by Animoca Brands highlighted a growing trend of centralized platforms evolving into so-called \u201cuniversal exchanges\u201d (UEXs) by offering access to on-chain tokens and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), The Defiant previously reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Moreover, the new integration positions Kraken to compete more directly with established brokerage and trading platforms that already offer access to global futures markets, such as Charles Schwab.<\/p>\n Kraken is one of the largest U.S.-based centralized exchanges (CEXs), reporting $1.5 billion in revenue and $664 billion in trading volume in 2024, according to company documents<\/a>. In the past 24 hours, Kraken has recorded around $1.5 billion in trading volume, according to data from CoinGecko<\/a>.<\/p>\n The announcement is the latest in a series of expansions by Kraken. Last month, the exchange said it would launch tokenized versions of U.S. stocks on Ethereum<\/a> via xStocks, a platform developed by Backed. Kraken currently offers xStocks to non-U.S. users on Solana, Tron, and BNB Chain.<\/p>\n