On February 21, it was reported that Deutsche Boerse, which runs a large derivative exchange in Germany called Eurex, will soon offer future contracts at the exchange relating to digital currencies. According to sources within the company, Eurex will offer a variety of future contracts. The exchange will tie these contracts to not only Bitcoin but also to Ethereum and Ripple. The same sources indicated that the exchange has already been in discussions with potential market makers for these contracts. Deutsche Boerse has considered offering future contracts linked to cryptocurrencies going all the way back to December of 2017. At the time, a spokesperson for the exchange said that the contracts would provide both institutional investors and private ones protections against fluctuations in Bitcoin prices. The contracts would also allow them to speculate on future prices. Then, in September of last year, Deutsche Boerse created a new unit within the company called DLT, Crypto Assets and New Market Structures. They tasked this unit with looking into the disruptive potential cryptocurrency technology could have in financial markets. The unit has also been investigating a variety of new products that the exchange could both develop and offer. Deutsche Boerse, which is one of the biggest stock exchanges in the world, founded Eurex in 1998 as an international derivatives exchange. The exchange is said to control a collateral pool of nearly 50 billion euros (more than $55 billion), and every month they clear trades valued at almost 12.5 trillion euros. In January of this year, Deutsche Boerse commented on the status of a blockchain-based securities lending platform it is developing. They said that they were making "significant progress" toward launching the platform sometime in the first half of this year. According to information released by Deutsche Boerse, 6 banks have already confirmed their intention to join the platform. These banks, it said, also had initiated what they called their "connectivity processes" to the platform.