Ripple Prime Joins CME's 24/7 Crypto Futures as Day-One Partner

Ripple Prime has joined the CME Group's newly launched 24/7 cryptocurrency futures and options marketplace as a day-one clearing and financing partner.

The CME Group, the world's largest derivatives exchange, expanded its trading hours for crypto derivatives on May 29, making continuous market access possible. During the first weekend of 24/7 operations, the CME reported over 7,200 contracts traded, logging approximately $50 million in notional value. This rather impressive liquidity was achieved through the participation of both retail and institutional market participants — not bad for a weekend that used to be reserved for staring at closed charts.

Ripple's clearing infrastructure fills a real gap. CME needs proper infrastructure for processing trades and managing margins outside of traditional banking hours, and in this case, Ripple Prime acts as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM).

When institutional clients execute trades on the CME Globex platform during the weekend, Ripple Prime settles those transactions with the help of its infrastructure. Traditional clearing processes would be forced to pause without such a system, creating a liquidity gap between the exchange and institutional balance sheets — the sort of gap that keeps risk managers up at night.

Institutional demand for $XRP derivatives has been climbing. CME Group launched its $XRP futures contracts in May 2025. The first block trade occurred on Sunday, May 18, and it was notably cleared by Hidden Road, the brokerage firm that was acquired by Ripple and later rebranded as Ripple Prime. As reported by U.Today, $XRP futures were the fastest-ever contracts on the CME to reach $1 billion in open interest. This milestone was reached in just three months, which is one way to make an entrance.

Noel Kimmel, President of Ripple Prime, stated that the firm's infrastructure was specifically built to meet the demand for around-the-clock digital asset management.