ICE Debuts CoinDesk Crypto Futures, Prepares to Launch USDC Rate Contracts
HONG KONG — Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has rolled out a new suite of cryptocurrency futures linked to CoinDesk indices, with plans to introduce products tied to onchain borrowing rates next.
The futures contracts began trading Monday, following their Jan. 9 announcement. The offerings are cash-settled and denominated in U.S. dollars, providing exposure to seven CoinDesk benchmarks.
The lineup includes broad-based futures tracking the CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 5 indices, as well as single-asset contracts tied to bitcoin, ether, solana, XRP and BNB. Because the contracts settle in cash rather than requiring physical delivery of digital tokens, they are structured to attract institutional investors seeking crypto exposure without the custody and operational complexities of holding spot assets.
Looking ahead, ICE plans to list One Month CoinDesk Overnight Rates (CDOR) USDC futures, pending regulatory approval, according to a company release. The proposed contracts would track the annualized effective interest rate paid by borrowers in decentralized finance (DeFi) markets.
The rate futures are designed to function as a crypto-native counterpart to traditional overnight benchmarks such as the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR), which underpins pricing for loans and other dollar-based financial instruments. By introducing these products, ICE aims to expand crypto derivatives beyond directional price trading into funding and credit markets, enabling participants to hedge or speculate on borrowing costs and liquidity dynamics.
ICE also highlighted the scale of adoption around CoinDesk’s index family, noting that tens of billions of dollars are benchmarked to the indices. The CoinDesk 20, in particular, is constructed using a capped market-cap-weighted methodology intended to capture a large share of the overall digital asset market
