The Zhishang Exchange attempted to forcefully push for 24/7 crude oil futures to be quickly listed, but was regulated and restrained.

The move by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to launch a 24/7 crude oil contract through a fast track approach was promptly halted by US financial regulators without hesitation. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a statement on Thursday saying that they have used regulatory power to temporarily halt the listing of the contract in question. According to the regulators, in the process of pushing for the listing of 24/7 crude oil futures, the CME used a process called "self-certification" they would submit an application on Wednesday, and if there was no clear opposition from regulators on Thursday, the product could go live as early as Friday. A source familiar with regulatory thinking revealed to the media that the CFTC was concerned that if they were to approve these mini crude oil contracts for round-the-clock trading too quickly, it could immediately lead to a concentration of products being listed. During times when commodity trading markets have historically been closed, the handling of a sudden influx of trades would be questionable. The CFTC also criticized the CME's actions as "highly inappropriate" in their announcement. The announcement stated that on June 22, the CFTC had just released a draft proposal, seeking public input on extending trading hours for standard futures contracts like crude oil to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are also risks of conflict with existing commodity laws in such crude oil trading. Despite this backdrop, the CME attempted to self-certify the contract. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig stated, "As I have said many times, we will not take a one-size-fits-all approach to round-the-clock trading. The CME's disregard for the Commission's efforts to conduct a rational analysis of key issues was highly inappropriate, and therefore it was necessary for the Commission to take action to suspend its certification. The Commission encourages all exchanges to work with regulatory staff before attempting to launch new contracts, to address any potential legal issues." It is reported that for the 24/7 crude oil futures contract, the CME also submitted another more traditional application for listing, which would require a 45-day approval process. Since the US-Iran conflict has led to drastic oil price fluctuations and attracted retail investors to participate in oil market trading, the CME has been working on launching these "10-barrel crude oil contracts" (trading units much smaller than the standard 1,000-barrel futures contract). Additionally, given that President Trump seems particularly keen on making tough statements towards Iran over the weekends, the necessity of round-the-clock trading has become more apparent. What concerns the CME is that the US-Iran conflict has led the "Bitcoin circle" trading platform Hyperliquid to introduce round-the-clock "on-chain oil" and "on-chain gold" to a wider audience. The "round-the-clock crude oil futures" is also a miniature of the global financial markets gradually moving towards "round-the-clock trading" in recent years. For example, the US stock market, which has recently achieved 24/7 continuous trading on weekdays, is now preparing to achieve 7x24-hour round-the-clock trading through "tokenized securities", with the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market competing for this goal. Jorge Montepelk, a petroleum analyst at Onyx Capital, said, "Many government documents, extreme weather events, or industrial accidents could occur over the weekends, and market participants, although needing to trade, are unable to do so. It makes sense to open the market 7x24 hours, and then we'll see if there is enough liquidity." This article is reprinted from "Caishang News", author: Shi Zhengcheng; GMTEight editor: Huang Xiaodong.