Bitcoin prices plunged on Friday, and the CME briefly halted trading on the cryptocurrency’s newly-launched futures in the morning.
But one executive at the exchange says he’s “agnostic” to what the price is doing.
“Whether the talk is about the price of Bitcoin, or the enthusiasm of Bitcoin, those are all great things that make for interesting chatter and interesting topics of conversation,” Tim McCourt, Global Head of Equities and Alternative Investments at the CME, said. “But as an exchange operator we want to make sure that our customers have what they need to manage their risk, to access the process, and do so efficiently in a transparent manner. And that really isn’t necessarily a function of price, or any type of hype that’s going on in the underlying market.”
McCourt joined Cheddar the day after the world’s largest futures exchange started offering the contracts. The launch over the weekend came when Bitcoin prices were approaching $20,000. But by Friday, the digital asset was trading about 40 percent lower around $12,500.
And it wasn’t the only cryptocurrency falling. Crypto news and data resource Coindesk notes that 20 different options were down more than 20 percent over a 24-hour period on Friday. Some experts say that more exchanges getting into the sector will introduce more volatility.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/cme-group-launches-bitcoin-futures-2).
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Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
