CME launches futures for Cardano, Stellar, and Chainlink

CME announced the beginning of Cardano, Stellar, and Chainlink futures. The relatively older altcoins arrive just as CME posted peak trading volumes in January. 

CME announced the long-awaited futures for Cardano, Stellar, and Chainlink. The three altcoins were prominent during previous altcoin bull markets, but are now more subdued following the 2026 downturn. 

Despite this, CME adds more crypto assets following the trading record in January. CME has also shown confidence in the crypto market by announcing a CME coin. 

The futures were announced first on January 15, selecting crypto coins that were relatively stable, but barely broke out during the 2025 bull market. The new futures will offer ADA futures equivalent to 100,000 ADA, or micro-futures for 10,000 ADA. 

The contracts for Chainlink will be for 5,000 LINK and 250 LINK. Stellar Lumens will trade in futures for 250,000 XLM or 12,500 XLM. 

Cardano, Stellar and Chainlink still trade near lows

Following the CME futures news, ADA traded at $0.26, ranked 13th among crypto assets. 

LINK traded near its lows at $8.68, ranked 18th among crypto assets. Despite the key role of Chainlink for oracle data in DeFi and exchanges, LINK traded as a utility token, failing to break out to $50 again. 

XLM traded at $0.15, remaining within its usual range. Stellar’s ambitions to rival Ripple brought it more significant exposure, but the project lagged in adoption. 

The biggest problem for Cardano and Stellar is that they lag behind other protocols in building an app-based economy or attracting developers. Stellar only carries $172M in value locked, while Cardano drew in $127M. Both chains spoke of their institutional appeal, and Stellar had multiple partnerships for cross-border payments, including with IBM. 

Despite this, the assets did not regain the initial appeal of their early pumps. Cardano spent most of its time preparing for hard forks, while the chain was barely used for apps. 

CME adds cult tokens, but will they gain mass appeal? 

ADA, XLM, and LINK have behaved as cult tokens in the past few years, becoming some of the most widely mentioned tickers. Despite this, newer crypto-native cohorts have shifted to new asset types. 

CME futures may be used to hedge the risk of actual tokens, similar to using more complex derivative strategies for BTC. 

On social media, the mindshare of ADA fell by 26% in the past day to 0.2%. The mindshare of XLM rose by 50% up to 0.1%. LINK has the highest mindshare of the three at 0.4%, recently increasing by 68%. 

ADA is not yet oversold, based on its RSI index, and is showing a ‘wait’ signal. XLM is showing overbought signals, while LINK sentiment is neutral, but the token shows a ‘sell’ signal. The tokens track the overall bearish market sentiment, and the CME futures may be used to offset the downside risks.

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