Crypto never sleeps. As of May 29, CME Group’s crypto futures and options don’t either.
The world’s largest derivatives exchange flipped the switch on 24/7 trading for its entire crypto futures suite at 4:30 p.m. CT, eliminating the weekend closures and limited hours that had defined its digital asset offerings since launch. The move covers futures and options on nine assets: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Chainlink, Stellar, Avalanche, and Sui.
For years, institutional traders had access to crypto futures on a regulated exchange, but only during what amounted to a near-23-hour daily window, with full shutdowns on weekends. That meant price gaps every Monday morning, commonly known as “CME gaps,” which became something of an obsession for chart analysts tracking support and resistance levels. Those gaps are now, for practical purposes, extinct.
What the new trading schedule looks like
On weekdays, there’s a two-minute maintenance window between 4:00 and 4:02 p.m. CT. On weekends, a longer two-hour maintenance window runs from 2:00 to 4:00 a.m. CT on Saturdays.
