CME Group Halts Trading After Cooling Failure Disrupts Global Markets
Quick Breakdown
- CME Group suspended trading across all major derivatives, including cryptocurrencies and commodities.
- The outage froze billions in daily volume on the Globex platform during a period of thin post-Thanksgiving liquidity, pausing price benchmarks like S&P 500 futures and halting trading.
- The incident raises serious concerns about single points of failure and the need for enhanced redundancy in high-stakes data centres.
On November 27, 2025, CME Group halted trading across several asset classes, including cryptocurrencies, commodities, currencies, and equity futures, after a cooling system failure at its CyrusOne data centers in Illinois. The outage started around 03:00 GMT, shutting down the Globex electronic platform right as post-Thanksgiving markets were heating up with renewed volatility. This left traders without live prices for major benchmarks like S&P 500 futures, Nasdaq 100, USD/EUR, and USD/JPY. Support teams jumped on the problem quickly, and while CME promised to keep the market updated on pre-open details, there was no clear timeline yet for when trading would resume.
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 CME Globex Futures and Options markets halted due to technical issues. pic.twitter.com/u478A23oCD
— Whale Insider (@WhaleInsider) November 28, 2025
Market disruptions and trader reactions
The trading halt made things even tougher during an already low-liquidity period following the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, freezing billions in daily volume on platforms like EBS for forex and Globex for futures. While spot forex traders moved to other venues, many brokers found themselves struggling without CME’s benchmark prices, increasing execution risks amid volatile global markets. Analysts like Tony Sycamore from IG Markets pointed out that the timing only made transaction challenges worse, highlighting the weaknesses of centralized infrastructure despite CME’s strong growth.
Crypto markets felt direct ripples as the outage paused trading in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and upcoming Solana futures contracts amid record October volumes of 26.3 million contracts. CME has aggressively expanded crypto offerings, recently announcing spot-quoted XRP and Solana futures set for a December launch and 24/7 crypto trading in 2026, highlighting the exchange’s pivot toward digital assets even as operational glitches expose risks.
Broader Context and Infrastructure Lessons
This incident at CyrusOne’s state-of-the-art facility housing CME’s trade matching engines, 35 miles from headquarters, raises questions about redundancy in high-stakes data centres powering trillions in derivatives. CME shares have jumped more than 20% so far this year, boosted by partnerships like Google Cloud and a surge in crypto futures. But outages like this serve as a reminder to traders that even major benchmark venues can have single points of failure. As markets bounce back, all eyes are on improving cooling systems and diversifying infrastructure, key steps to keeping trust strong as Web3 continues to grow.
Meanwhile, Securitize has secured full EU authorization for a compliant tokenized trading and settlement system under the DLT Pilot Regime. Built on Avalanche (AVAX), this new European market infrastructure enables the regulated issuance and trading of tokenized assets, such as bonds and equities, across all 27 EU member states. By connecting this to its existing U.S. system, Securitize is the first operator to offer a dual-regulated digital securities infrastructure, a crucial factor for institutional adoption. The initiative aims to merge traditional capital markets with DLT, offering a robust, legally compliant channel for managing real-world assets on-chain.
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