CME Crypto Markets Reopen After Data-Centre Cooling Issue

The CME Group has reopened its crypto markets after around 9 hours of downtime, which the exchange revealed was due to a cooling issue at its data center. This comes amid the exchange’s plans to launch new crypto products due to rising institutional demand. Meanwhile, experts have speculated that there might be other reasons why the exchange halted other than the reason it gave.

CME Crypto Markets Resume Trading After Cooling Issue

In an X post, the CME Group announced that all markets are open and trading. The exchange had earlier halted trading for its futures and options markets, including for its crypto products.

As CoinGape reported, the derivatives marketplace had to halt trading activity after a cooling malfunction hit the CyrusOne facilities that power its systems. Notably, the exchange runs futures and options markets for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP.

This marked the exchange’s longest outage in a long while. In 2014, it had to suspend trading on some agricultural contracts due to technical problems. The CME Group is notably the biggest exchange operator by market value, with its crypto markets used for market surveillance.

Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that the CME has continued to see significant demand for its crypto products. CME Active Trader recently reported that Micro Ethereum futures hit an all-time high, with open interest reaching 490,147 contracts on November 25. This marks its third consecutive daily high.

Micro Ether (MET) futures just hit an all-time record 💥

Open interest soared to 490,147 contracts on November 25, marking its third consecutive daily high. 📈

Growth is evident ➡️ https://t.co/06x7G2jk2Q pic.twitter.com/BaQGPuPasv

— CME Active Trader (@CMEActiveTrader) November 27, 2025

Furthermore, spot-quoted Bitcoin and Ethereum futures traded a record 60,700 contracts on November 24, bringing year-to-date (YTD) volume to nearly 1 million contracts. Amid the institutional demand for these crypto products, the exchange recently announced plans to launch spot-quoted Solana and XRP futures on December 15.

Meanwhile, treasuries saw lower volumes upon the resumption of trading.

*TREASURIES EDGE HIGHER ON LOW VOLUMES AS CME TRADING RESUMES pic.twitter.com/1qfwYGjxH1

— Investing.com (@Investingcom) November 28, 2025

Experts Speculate On the ‘Real’ Reason Behind The Downtime

In an X post, Synnax Co-Founder & COO Dario alleged that the real reason the CME halted trading was that a market trader blew up. Dario had earlier noted that the silver futures book was very thin, and then a trade cleared the offer side with no quotes left.

Just spoke to a commodity traders and he said the “glitch” excuse is bs. Silver futures book was very thin, then a trade cleared the Offer side with no quotes left. According to him CME is giving time to market makers to reposition and avoid a price print “off the charts” https://t.co/1pc1lwei0z

— JustDario 🏊‍♂️ (@DarioCpx) November 28, 2025

He added that a CME spokesperson told him the exchange was giving market makers time to reposition and avoid a price print “off the charts.” In another X post, Dario stated that too many coincidences were piling up.

He noted that the CME halted futures trading for the entire night and then only resumed at the exact moment the banks borrowed $24.4 billion in liquidity from the Fed through a standing repo on a half-day trading day. Meanwhile, market analyst Jesse Cohen also questioned whether the outage was due to a data center cooling failure, a hack, or “some good old-fashioned market manipulation.”