The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, ICE, takes bold action with both index futures contracts and a predictive market sentiment tool

Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

Yesterday, following the heavy news in January about "the planned launch of a tokenized securities trading and on-chain settlement platform supporting 24/7 trading", the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, ICE Group (Intercontinental Exchange), made two more significant moves—first, it launched seven CoinDesk index cryptocurrency futures contracts and plans to introduce a one-month CoinDesk Overnight Rate (CDOR) USDC futures based on the CoinDesk overnight rate (pending approval); second, it launched Polymarket signals and sentiment tools, providing market signals such as predictive market data and analysis for institutional investors. A series of actions indicate that ICE Group, as the "parent" of one of the largest stock exchanges in the U.S., is building its own "new ecosystem."

In the current context of deep coupling between traditional financial markets and cryptocurrency markets, ICE Group has transformed from a behind-the-scenes planner to a trendsetter.

ICE Launches CoinDesk Cryptocurrency Futures Contracts: Providing More Choices for the Securities Market

In a previous article titled “The NYSE Plans to Launch 24/7 Stock Tokenized Trading, Competitors Are Stunned”, we conducted a detailed analysis of the NYSE's ambition to integrate the liquidity of both TradFi and DeFi markets, also listing both positive and negative viewpoints from the market at that time.

In less than a month, the parent company of the NYSE, ICE Group, has also broken its silence, stepping directly into the spotlight by launching seven CoinDesk cryptocurrency futures contracts that align more closely with crypto-native metrics, including: ICE CoinDesk 20 Index Futures, ICE CoinDesk 5 Index Futures, ICE CoinDesk Bitcoin Futures, ICE CoinDesk Ether Futures, ICE CoinDesk Solana Futures, ICE CoinDesk XRP Futures, and ICE CoinDesk BNB Futures, with the relevant contracts priced in USD and settled in cash.

It is worth mentioning that the CoinDesk index-related cryptocurrency futures contracts have the following advantages:

• 1. Historical Significance—The CoinDesk index has been operational since 2014, with its flagship index, the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX), historically regarded as one of the foundational metrics in the industry. Products like BlackRock's BTC ETF also reference it as one of their benchmarks, with over $40 billion in assets (such as ETFs and funds) linked to this index.
• 2. Broad Coverage—The CoinDesk 20 index covers approximately 90% of mainstream cryptocurrencies, employing a market capitalization-weighted and cap design to avoid dominance by a single asset, meeting institutional investment standards, with a total market cap of related products exceeding $16 billion. The CoinDesk 5 index tracks the performance of the five largest constituents by market cap within the CoinDesk 20 index, balancing index equilibrium while considering the market position of high-cap cryptocurrencies.
• 3. First-Mover Advantage—ICE Group previously collaborated with CoinDesk Indices on Singapore futures products. The transparency and data quality of the CoinDesk index meet regulatory compliance requirements and help ICE Group quickly expand its crypto product line while lowering the understanding threshold for investment institutions.

Thus, by leveraging the CoinDesk index, ICE has introduced cryptocurrency futures contracts into the traditional financial trading market, providing more trading options for professional institutional investors; it has also indirectly brought more liquidity into the cryptocurrency market—thanks to the seven USD-priced, cash-settled CoinDesk index cryptocurrency futures contracts, institutional traders can flexibly hedge risk assets and diversify asset allocations.

Furthermore, the "one-month CoinDesk Overnight Rate (CDOR) USDC futures" product that ICE Group plans to promote will further expand the influence of the cryptocurrency market on traditional financial markets.

It is no exaggeration to say that this move by ICE is the first time a traditional securities exchange has introduced derivatives based on on-chain DeFi rates, which also means that the annualized overnight borrowing rates of on-chain lending protocols have gained recognition in traditional financial markets, facilitating investors in hedging USDC borrowing costs or locking in yields. Regardless of how the product performs post-launch, this is a historic step. In the current down cycle of the crypto market, it is akin to injecting a wave of fresh blood.

If we liken the traditional financial market to a vegetable market, the launch of the CoinDesk index cryptocurrency futures contracts is like ICE Group providing more "dishes" at its "vegetable stall" for customers; while the launch of Polymarket signals and sentiment tools is similar to ICE Group offering more "price impact indicators" to "buyers" (Odaily Planet Daily Note: referring to professional investment institutions and investors) to help them make effective decisions on "which vegetables to buy."

ICE Group Launches Polymarket Signals and Sentiment Tools: An "Information Gold Shovel" for Investors

Last September, ICE Group invested $2 billion in Polymarket at a valuation of $9 billion. At that time, the prediction market was on the eve of a trading volume explosion, with the industry’s monthly trading volume still around $5 billion. However, with the overall slump in the crypto market, the series of predictive events, and the strong enthusiasm from capital institutions, the trading volume of the entire prediction market sector began to surge starting in the fourth quarter—monthly trading volumes continuously broke new highs, with November's trading volume quickly exceeding $13 billion, representing a more than fourfold increase compared to the 2024 U.S. presidential election year.

Since then, Polymarket, claiming to be "the world's largest prediction market platform," has seen a new wave of growth in valuation, platform trading volume, and user numbers. Compared to traditional polling and data research channels, prediction markets provide more intuitive and collective intelligence indicators, thus garnering increasing attention.

To some extent, the probability trends of various betting events on Polymarket serve as the best "risk signal indicators," and ICE Group has recognized the decision-support value in this regard.

As Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan stated: "Prediction markets reflect near-real-time collective expectations of market-driven events and have become a reliable information input beyond traditional data sources."

Similarly, we can illustrate the specific role of this event with two simple examples.

1. Betting events on Polymarket regarding "the timing and method of the U.S. attacking Iran" can provide auxiliary information for energy asset traders and hedge funds. If the likelihood of such an event suddenly increases and trading volume surges, it often indicates heightened tensions in certain regions, likely causing oil and other energy prices to spike. Institutional investors can take this opportunity to build positions for profit in advance or buy safe-haven assets and sell risk assets.

2. Various weather and climate betting events on Polymarket can serve as important auxiliary information for institutional investors to assess the yield and price trends of major agricultural products like corn and soybeans, as well as related concept stocks. The real-time "event probability trends" on the prediction market platform can directly help investment institutions adjust their portfolios before weather events truly impact supply chains/prices, avoiding asset damage due to concentrated holdings in high-risk stocks.

In other words, various betting events on prediction markets can identify abnormal factors ahead of time, thereby materializing the potential impacts on related assets.

It is worth noting that the data from Polymarket is not the only source of information ICE Group provides to institutional investors; previous sources also included data from Reddit and Dow Jones. The cross-validation of multiple sources can further enhance the accuracy and sensitivity of ICE Group's market signals and sentiment tools.

By leveraging this "truth machine" powered by real money, ICE Group effectively opens a "window of probability" for institutional investors to "see the future in advance."

Summary: ICE Group is Building Its Own "Crypto Landscape"

Last September, the U.S. SEC's cryptocurrency special working group held talks with the NYSE and ICE Group regarding cryptocurrency regulation, covering topics such as crypto derivatives and tokenized stock trading. Prior to this, ICE Group had successively reached collaborations with Circle and Chainlink on USDC integration, foreign exchange, and precious metals data on-chain.

Based on the available information, under the crypto-friendly regulatory environment created by the Trump administration, ICE Group is making significant strides into the "crypto financial era," gathering its own "crypto landscape" through investments, collaborations, and the expansion of trading targets.