(Kitco News) – Binance, the world’s largest and most liquid digital assets exchange, has added U.S. dollar-denominated precious metals options to its commodity product suite.
“Commodity Options are now live: USDT- settled, European-style contracts built on Binance’s proven Options infrastructure,” the exchange announced on Wednesday, adding that new options contracts enable users to “trade gold and silver with the same speed and simplicity as crypto options.”
The new commodity options contracts are part of Binance’s growing TradFi (traditional finance) product suite, and the company said they offer traders “a new way to express direction, trade volatility, and hedge” from their Binance account.
“This is not a product looking for demand,” the exchange said in the announcement. “Gold Perpetuals already hit $7.77 billion in peak daily volume on Binance. Silver hit $7.27 billion. The demand was already there.”
Binance said the options allow account holders to diversify their portfolios by gaining exposure to traditional commodity markets of gold and silver, to trade volatility and defined risk-strategies, and to use options to hedge existing metals positions in traditional finance.
The exchange said the options offer defined risk for buyers, with the maximum loss the premium paid, and no liquidation risk on long positions. They added that there is no underlying asset to hold, as all trading and settlement is entirely in USDT.
The new commodity options follow the regular trading sessions of the underlying asset, meaning XAUUSDT and XAGUSDT will trade from Sunday at 6:00 PM to Friday 5:00 PM ET, while the market closes from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM ET each day.
The market is closed during off-hours, Binance said, meaning no new orders can be placed and existing orders are not matched during these times, and trading may also close early on holidays.
TradFi giants are also innovating in the gold and silver space, with smaller contract sizes and expanded trading hours. On Monday, the CME Group, the world's largest derivatives exchange, announced that 15,000 one-ounce gold futures contracts were bought and sold during the inaugural weekend of trading, representing approximately $60 million in notional value.
"Our launch demonstrates that retail traders were ready and waiting for always-on, regulated and right-sized products to manage their exposure to gold," said Jin Hennig, Managing Director and Global Head of Metals at CME Group.
CME launched its one-ounce gold futures contract in January 2025, with the smaller contract size specifically designed for retail traders. The contract averaged 87,000 contracts traded daily (ADV) during the first half of 2026.
Beyond the retail market, CME said it has seen unprecedented demand for gold in 2026. The exchange reported a record $125 billion in average daily notional value traded across its gold futures contracts so far this year.
"CME Group's metals business set a new record in the first half of 2026, with a total of 1.3 million contracts traded daily, driven by precious metals activity, up 55% year over year," the exchange said.
