Two Coins, One Basket, Zero Custody Drama: CME's Crypto Smoothie Is 86.29% BTC + ETH 🥤

Nine cryptocurrencies now trade inside a single financially settled futures contract on CME Group's exchange, and two of them do almost all the heavy lifting. Bitcoin and Ethereum together represent 86.29% of the Nasdaq CME Crypto Index (NCI) basket, according to the exchange's published documentation. The remaining seven constituents split the leftover weight across the altcoin portion of the index.

The NCI futures contract and its smaller Micro NCI (MCI) sibling settle against the Nasdaq CME Crypto Settlement Price Index, meaning no tokens change hands at expiry and no custody chain has to be managed on the close. CME positions the product for portfolio hedging, macro overlays, and directional exposure across the crypto market, letting a desk run a nine-asset view through one margin account instead of stacking separate futures legs for each token. The structure places the basket in the same regulated lane as CME's existing single-asset Bitcoin and Ether futures, giving institutions a familiar venue for multi-coin exposure. The contract specifications are dated September 29, 2026, the latest revision listed by the exchange.