The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the world’s largest financial derivatives exchange, halted trading for approximately 10 hours from Thursday into Friday, leading to significant discontent among traders before service was eventually restored.
The trading halt was attributed to a “cooling issue” at the CyrusOne data center located in Illinois, according to an official announcement from the CME. Trading services were fully reinstated, and all markets resumed normal operations at 1:30 pm UTC on Friday, as confirmed by a subsequent update from the CME.
In the interim, traders voiced strong objections to the critical system failure. The outage left some participants locked in their existing positions, prevented others from initiating new trades, and effectively halted price discovery across the markets.
Stock trader Timothy Bozman questioned the extended downtime, accusing the CME of market manipulation and asking how “a simple issue could take down CME’s entire futures platform?”
Another X user suggested the timing of the outage was suspicious, stating, “Very convenient that this happens in Asia on Thanksgiving Day, when there’s already low volume. Sounds like you’re trying to manipulate the markets quickly in a certain direction.”
The negative reaction from traders persisted even after the technical issue was resolved. Many traders pointed out that the trading halt occurred mere minutes before silver futures contracts reached an all-time high of $54, fueling further speculation about the incident’s impact and timing.
Bitcoin Futures Contracts Show Resilience Post-Market Halt
The CME does not typically publish regular trading data for Thanksgiving Day, which fell on Thursday this year. However, data from TradingView indicates that Bitcoin futures contracts closed at $90,355 on Wednesday and reopened at $90,940 on Friday.
Bitcoin futures prices continued their upward trajectory on Friday, surpassing $93,000 at the time of reporting, as Bitcoin (BTC) rebounds from its recent low of $80,522.
Market analysts suggest that BTC faces immediate resistance at the $95,000 level. However, if the cryptocurrency can successfully reclaim this level as support, it may pave the way for a return to the $100,000 territory.
Investor and analyst Arthur Hayes identified the recent dip to just over $80,000 as the market's lowest point. He posited that easing liquidity conditions are expected to drive BTC to higher levels in 2026, while also cautioning that a short-term price drop might occur in the interim.