CME Launches AVAX and SUI Futures as Institutional Crypto Demand Expands

• Advertisement -

• CME Group adds AVAX and SUI futures to its crypto offerings.

• Crypto products on CME shot up in Q1 this year, with average daily open interest hitting 313.9K contracts, a 25% increase YoY.

The CME Group is expanding its cryptocurrency offerings with the launch of AVAX and Micro AVAX, and SUI and Micro SUI futures. The financial derivatives exchange notes that these products add to its current offerings of Cardano, Chainlink, and Stellar futures, launched in February.

The new contracts are cash-settled using CME CF Reference Rates, giving traders access to price exposure without having to directly hold the coins. By adding micro contracts alongside larger ones, CME is also opening the door for small firms and active retail traders.

Avalanche and Sui futures are available for trading.

Explore our latest article to discover new ways to manage risk and diversify your crypto trades. pic.twitter.com/4grYiwbB0n

— CME Group (@CMEGroup) May 26, 2026

The group is very keen on offering more to institutions to help them diversify their crypto portfolios. It believes that investors are not just looking for the big coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but also at other Layer-1 blockchain ecosystems. Networks like Avalanche and Sui offer different capabilities, higher scaling and new opportunities in DeFi, agentic payments, and more. This allows institutional investors to hedge their bets and diversify their portfolios.

**CME’s Crypto Quarter **

Avalanche is known for fast transactions at low costs. As we reported, Ava Labs President John Wu believes that while Bitcoin is the godfather, enterprises are choosing Avalanche to deploy their applications.

Sui, on the other hand, has built an object-centric scalability model that processes transactions in parallel, boosting scalability. It recently announced that it will be making stablecoin transactions private by default.

Average daily open interest in CME’s crypto products jumped sharply in the first quarter of 2026, as more institutional investors entered the market. Average daily open interest, or ADOI, reached 313.9K contracts, up 25% from the first quarter of 2025, the exchange said. It further notes that even the recently launched futures have recorded significant trading activity.

The exchange reveals that AVAX and SUI maintain moderate-to-high correlations with Bitcoin. This means following broad market trends yet providing idiosyncratic exposure. In particular, AVAX has a high correlation with smart-contract and high-throughput platform tokens such as ADA and SOL. SUI shows lower correlations to the broader group, particularly with payment networks like Stellar and XRP.

At the time of writing, AVAX is trading at $9.15 after a 2% fall in the last 24 hours. SUI is changing hands for** $1** after a 3.3% dip during the same time.

Both coins are seeing a bearish trend driven by broader macro events. However, they have been building strength with greater adoption and network expansion that could lead to a breakout soon.