Terry Duffy: Thanks, Alex.
Operator: And our last question in queue is a follow-up. It’s coming from Owen Lau with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.
Owen Lau: Hi, thank you for taking my follow-up. So it has been more than one month after the launch of spot Bitcoin ETF. Could you please talk about how it has impacted CME Bitcoin futures and futures ETF? Do you think it’s a net positive for CME? Just want to get your thoughts on this space. Thanks a lot.
Terry Duffy: Thanks, John. Tim can comment and I won’t be able to help myself, I’ll make a comment as well.
Tim McCourt: Thanks, Owen, for the question. Certainly we’ve seen finally the long awaited approval of the spot based ETFs on Bitcoin. And it’s certainly a interesting and positive development for the ecosystem more broadly. We’re hearing from customers, our futures remain a central tool for the market makers of that ETF for those who are looking to create or redeem against the futures instead of the cash process. So it’s something that we’ve also seen strong growth both on open interest and in volume of our complex in response to the run-up that’s also remained here into February. To put that in perspective, January was our best month ever in terms of average daily open interest, [tapping] (ph) four consecutive months of average daily open interest all-time highs, where the average daily open interest reached a record of almost 23,600 contracts, which is the equivalent of about $5.1 billion US dollars.
But also on the volume side, the futures suite reached an all-time high of about 67,000 contracts or almost $6 billion per day in January and our micro suite for the crypto products grew four times, a four-fold increase in September, all in response to the market dynamics around the ramp to launch and the subsequent trading activity of the launch of spot Bitcoin ETF. We also remain the top Bitcoin futures exchange by open interest, and we expect this ecosystem to continue to grow as we see the interrelated products be adopted by the market and CME Bitcoin futures and our Bitcoin reference rate will remain at the center of price discovery for this continuing growing ecosystem.
Terry Duffy: And, Owen, the only thing I would add to that, we’ve heard for a lot of years, what does it mean when an ETF versus a future? Are they competitive in certain asset classes? All we have seen is the futures continue to grow as they list ETFs, as people need to do risk management, as other people are taking passive interest in some of these ETFs. So I think the ecosystem is good as it continues to grow. Tim just outlined some of the numbers. So I don’t see this any different than some of the growth of our other products. I actually am very encouraged by this.
Owen Lau: Thanks a lot.
Terry Duffy: Thank you.
Operator: We have no further questions. I’d like to turn it back over to management for closing remarks.
Terry Duffy: We want to thank you all very much for covering CME. We’re excited by the quarter. We look forward to talking with you next quarter. We think it’s going to be a busy year and look forward to answering any other questions you have for us on follow-ups as we go forward. Thank you.
Operator: That concludes the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.
