Bitcoin Futures Explained: CME Bitcoin and Micro Bitcoin Futures, Cash Settlement, and the Basis

Bitcoin futures are contracts whose value tracks the price of bitcoin on a future date, settled in US dollars rather than in bitcoin itself. On CME Group, the standard Bitcoin futures contract (BTC) covers 5 bitcoin and the Micro Bitcoin contract (MBT) covers one tenth of a bitcoin, and both settle in cash to a benchmark price called the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate.

In short: CME Bitcoin futures (BTC) are 5 bitcoin per contract with a minimum tick of $5 per bitcoin, worth $25 per contract. Micro Bitcoin futures (MBT) are 0.1 bitcoin with the same $5 per bitcoin tick, worth $0.50 per contract, one fiftieth the size of BTC. Both expire on the last Friday of the month and are cash settled to the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR), a 4:00 p.m. London time price. No bitcoin changes hands. Since May 29, 2026, CME’s cryptocurrency futures trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week, apart from a brief weekly maintenance window.

What a bitcoin future is, and is not

A CME bitcoin future is a regulated futures contract, cleared by CME Clearing and overseen by the CFTC. It works like an equity index future: a fixed number of units of an underlying price, marked to market every day, settled in cash. You never hold bitcoin, need a wallet, or face the risk of a crypto exchange losing your coins.

It is also not the same as the “perpetual futures” offered by many offshore crypto exchanges. Those have no expiry, use a funding payment between longs and shorts to stay near spot, and often allow much higher leverage. They are outside the US futures regulatory framework, and nothing here describes them.

The contracts

Specifications from CME’s contract pages, FAQ and fact cards, as of November 2026.

Feature	Bitcoin futures (BTC)	Micro Bitcoin futures (MBT)
Size	5 bitcoin	0.1 bitcoin
Minimum tick (outright)	$5 per bitcoin = $25.00 per contract	$5 per bitcoin = $0.50 per contract
Calendar spread tick	$1 per bitcoin = $5.00 per contract	$1 per bitcoin = $0.10 per contract
Expiry	Last Friday of the contract month	Last Friday of the contract month
Final settlement	Cash, to the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (London, 4:00 p.m.)	Cash, to the same rate
Listed months	Monthly, including the nearest six consecutive months and the nearest two Decembers	Monthly
Size ratio	1 BTC = 50 MBT

CME also lists other cryptocurrency futures: Bitcoin Friday futures (BFF, one fiftieth of a bitcoin, settling to the New York variant of the reference rate used by many US spot bitcoin ETFs), ether futures and Micro Ether, and, since 2025, Solana and XRP futures in standard and micro sizes. This article sticks to BTC and MBT.

24/7 trading

CME announced in February 2026 that its cryptocurrency futures and options would trade around the clock, and the change took effect on Friday, May 29, 2026. As of November 2026:

Products trade continuously on CME Globex with a short weekly maintenance window.
Trades executed between Friday evening and Sunday evening carry the next business day’s trade date. Clearing, settlement and regulatory reporting happen on that business day.

The practical consequence: prices can move a long way over a weekend while settlement cycles still follow business days. Before May 2026, bitcoin futures followed CME’s Sunday-to-Friday schedule, which is why older charts show “CME gaps” where spot bitcoin moved over a weekend.

Cash settlement to the reference rate

The CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate aggregates trades from a set of major spot bitcoin exchanges during a one-hour window ending at 4:00 p.m. London time and turns them into a single US dollar price for one bitcoin. On the last trading day, open BTC and MBT contracts are closed out at that rate.

Using a calculated benchmark rather than a single exchange’s last trade is meant to make the final price harder to manipulate and more representative of the market. Cash settlement in general, and how it compares with physical delivery, is covered in physical vs cash settlement.

Worked example: tick arithmetic

Prices are illustrative, not forecasts.

BTC. You buy one BTC contract at $100,000. By the daily settlement it is at $98,750.

Move: $1,250 per bitcoin against you.
Ticks: $1,250 / $5 = 250 ticks.
Loss: 250 x $25 = $6,250. (Check: $1,250 x 5 bitcoin = $6,250.)

MBT. The same move on one MBT:

250 ticks x $0.50 = $125. (Check: $1,250 x 0.1 = $125.)

A bad week. Bitcoin has had many weeks with moves of 15% or more. At $100,000, 15% is $15,000 per bitcoin: $75,000 on one BTC contract and $1,500 on one MBT. The notional value of one BTC at that price is $500,000, so a modest-looking margin deposit controls a very large position.

The basis: futures vs spot

The basis is the difference between a futures price and the spot price. For bitcoin futures it is usually positive: futures trade above spot, a form of contango.

Why? Part of it is the same cost of carry that applies to any asset: someone who buys bitcoin today ties up cash that could earn interest, while a futures buyer does not. Part of it is demand. When many traders want leveraged long exposure, they bid futures above spot, and the premium can exceed what interest rates alone would justify. Bitcoin pays no dividends or coupons to offset carry.

Illustrative example: spot bitcoin is $100,000 and the one-month future is $100,600.

Basis: $600, or 0.6% over one month.
Roughly annualised (simple): 0.6% x 12 = 7.2% a year.

If interest rates are 4%, the extra premium reflects demand for long exposure. As expiry approaches, the basis shrinks toward zero, because at expiry the futures settle to the reference rate.

This gap creates the well-known cash-and-carry or basis trade: buy spot bitcoin (or a spot bitcoin ETF) and sell futures, collecting the premium as it converges. It is not risk free: margin calls on the short futures can arrive before the premium is earned, the spot and settlement prices can diverge, and the trade needs financing. The basis can also turn negative in stressed markets. See the basis glossary entry and contango and backwardation.

A cash-and-carry example

Illustrative numbers. A fund buys 5 bitcoin at $100,000 in the spot market ($500,000) and sells one BTC future for the month-end expiry at $100,600. At expiry the reference rate is $92,000.

Spot holding: 5 x ($92,000 minus $100,000) = minus $40,000.
Short future: 5 x ($100,600 minus $92,000) = plus $43,000, paid in daily variation margin on the way down.
Net: plus $3,000, which is the original $600 basis x 5 bitcoin, before financing, fees and any gap between the fund’s selling price for spot and the reference rate.

Had bitcoin risen to $110,000 instead, the spot holding would gain $50,000 and the future would lose $47,000, again netting $3,000. But the fund would have had to pay the $47,000 in margin as the price rose, before selling its bitcoin. Cash to meet margin is the binding constraint in this trade.

Rolling

Because BTC and MBT expire monthly, anyone holding exposure over time has to roll from one month to the next, paying the difference between the months. When the curve is in steep contango, that roll cost can be large. This is one reason bitcoin futures ETFs can lag spot bitcoin over time; see futures ETFs explained.

Who uses bitcoin futures

Institutions that want regulated, centrally cleared bitcoin exposure without custody.
Holders of bitcoin (including miners and funds) hedging price risk.
Basis traders running cash-and-carry trades.
Futures ETFs that hold CME contracts.
Speculators, increasingly through MBT because of its smaller size.

What can go wrong

Extreme volatility. Bitcoin’s price swings are much larger than those of stock indexes or gold. A day’s move can wipe out a margin deposit.
Margin is high and changes. CME sets bitcoin futures margins as a large percentage of notional, and brokers add their own requirements. As of November 2026 current figures are on CME’s margin page; any number here would go stale quickly.
Weekend risk. With 24/7 trading, positions can move sharply on a Saturday, when liquidity may be thin and many traders are not watching. Stop orders can fill far from their trigger prices.
Losses beyond the deposit. As with all futures, you can lose more than you put in.
Benchmark risk. At expiry you get the reference rate, which can differ from the price on the exchange you watch.
Roll costs. Holding through many expiries in contango erodes returns relative to spot.

The takeaway

CME bitcoin futures turn bitcoin’s dollar price into a regulated, cash-settled contract: 5 bitcoin for BTC, 0.1 bitcoin for MBT, with each $5 tick worth $25 or $0.50. They expire on the last Friday of each month, settle to the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate, and since May 29, 2026 trade around the clock. Futures usually trade above spot, a basis that shrinks to zero at expiry. The contracts are small in tick terms and large in risk.