CME Goes 24/7 on Crypto Futures

Michael Jordan of DBA | Kraken Acquires Magna

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
February 20, 2026

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Good Morning

CME is going 24/7 on crypto futures. For years, crypto traded nonstop while regulated futures went dark on weekends, which created hedging gaps and distorted price discovery. Removing that mismatch tightens the link between institutional flow and global spot markets.

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In Today's Email:

What Matters: CME Goes 24/7 on Crypto Futures 🕛️
Founders Highlight: Michael Jordan of DBA 👨
Deal Flows: Kraken Acquires Magna 🐙

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Narratives: Tokenized equities breakout

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WHAT MATTERS

CME Goes 24/7 on Crypto Futures

State of play: CME Group will launch 24/7 crypto futures and options trading on May 29, pending approval. The move aligns regulated derivatives with nonstop spot markets, letting institutions hedge anytime.

The exchange reported a record $3T in notional crypto derivatives volume in 2025.
In 2026 so far, average daily crypto volume has reached 407,200 contracts, up 46% year over year, with futures volume rising 47%.
CME introduced BTC futures in 2017 and later expanded into ether and other digital asset products.
CME is positioning itself as the always on, regulated venue for institutional crypto exposure.
The shift comes as exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken expand their derivatives offerings and Wall Street competition intensifies.

Why it matters: By going always on, CME tightens price discovery between institutional futures and global spot markets.

Our take: When the largest derivatives exchange in the world flips to 24/7, crypto stops looking like a side product and starts looking like core infrastructure.

For builders and investors: Expect tighter spreads between spot and futures, faster volatility transmission, and more sophisticated basis trades.

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Michael Jordan of DBA

Intro: Michael Jordan is the Co-founder and General Partner at DBA, a New York-based crypto investment firm that takes focused, long-term positions in the industry and actively partners with its investments.

Previous background: Michael was Co-Head of Investments at Galaxy Digital from 2017 to 2022, leading early bets on Fireblocks, Tagomi, Bison Trails, CipherTrace, and other foundational crypto firms.

The big idea: Michael’s big idea is high conviction, partner led crypto investing. Instead of diversifying broadly, they take concentrated, long term bets on protocols and companies they believe matter.

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INSIGHTS

xStocks Top $25B in Volume

Tokenized xStocks have surpassed $25B in lifetime transaction volume since launch, including about $3.5B in onchain activity across Solana, Ethereum, and TON.

The milestone strengthens xStocks’ lead in tokenized equities. It now has over 80,000 onchain holders and about $225M in assets under management.
Each xStock is fully backed one to one by an underlying stock or ETF held by a licensed custodian.
Kraken is now finalizing its acquisition of Backed, the issuer behind xStocks, as competition in tokenized equities heats up.
Data shows xStocks on Solana hold nearly 47% market share, while Ondo’s Ethereum offerings and BNB deployments account for most of the remainder.
The broader tokenized stock market currently stands near $940M in value with about $2.34B in monthly trading volume.

DEAL FLOWS

Kraken Acquires Magna to Expand Token Lifecycle Infrastructure

Deal flows soared this week - we saw $97M+ in deals 💼

Kraken has acquired token vesting and management platform Magna, marking its sixth acquisition in the past year. Deal terms were not disclosed, though Magna was last valued at $70M.

Founded in 2021, Magna provides tooling for token vesting, airdrops, allocations, custody, escrow workflows, and staking across multiple chains.
The platform reportedly reached a peak Total Value Locked of $60B in 2025 and serves projects managing billions in token ecosystems.
The acquisition strengthens Kraken’s push into token lifecycle infrastructure as it prepares for a potential IPO.

Deal flows in the past week:

Fireplace, $1.5M Pre-Seed Round
PRED, $2.5M Seed Round
PlutonAI, $2.7M Seed Round
Novig, $75M Series B Round
YOM, $3M Strategic Round
Kresus, $13M Unknown Round
Dreamcash, Unknown $ Unknown Round

QUICK BITES

Parsec winding down operations.
DBA raises $68M for its second venture fund.
Polymarket buys fresh prediction market API startup Dome.
Tokenized xStocks surpass $25B in total transaction volume.
ProShares launches first stablecoin-ready money market ETF.
Robinhood's Layer 2 testnet sees 4M transactions in first week.
Hacker returns $21M in stolen bitcoin to South Korean authorities.
SEC's Peirce and Atkins outline path forward for tokenized securities.
Uniswap governance considers activating protocol fees on all v3 pools.
CME Group to launch 24/7 crypto futures and options trading on May 29.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

Spencer Bogart’s read on The Great Repricing.
DeFi Warhol’s read on Billion Dollar Ghost Towns.
0xJeff’s read on Dragonfly Just Raised $650M. Why?

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.