CME Resumes Trading After Data Center Cooling Failure Impacting Crypto Futures

CME Resumes Trading After Data Center Cooling Failure Impacting Crypto Futures

CME Group endured a 10-hour trading halt after a CyrusOne Illinois data center malfunction caused by human error froze equipment, highlighting risks of dependence on a single facility.

Fact Check
The assessment is based on a comprehensive and consistent body of evidence from multiple primary sources. All provided articles, including those from high-authority news agencies like Reuters, Yahoo Finance, and MarketWatch, uniformly report that the CME trading halt was caused by a cooling issue. Furthermore, these sources consistently and specifically name CyrusOne as the operator of the data center where the failure occurred. Several reports explicitly state they are quoting official communications from CME Group, which lends significant credibility to the claim. There are no contradictions or alternative explanations presented in any of the sources. The complete agreement across all eight sources, from high to low authority, provides a strong and unambiguous basis for concluding the statement is true.
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Summary

On December 7, CME Group halted trading for more than 10 hours after a cooling system breakdown at CyrusOne’s Illinois data center, caused by improper drainage that led to freezing and overheating during initial repairs. The outage disrupted multiple markets, including crypto futures, and exposed vulnerabilities in CME’s reliance on a single facility. The event follows an earlier incident where BrokerTec EU markets resumed after a similar cooling failure, but other CME Group markets stayed paused until repairs concluded.

Terms & Concepts
  • CyrusOne: A data center provider whose cooling system failure led to the suspension of multiple trading markets on CME.
  • Crypto Futures: Derivatives contracts that allow traders to speculate on the future price movements of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.