CME Group CEO Terry Duffy said futures contracts pegged to bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.25% on its exchange could be ready as soon as the second week of December. The CME CME, -0.97% boss made his comments during a Monday interview on CNBC, where he also discussed the inherent volatility in the worlds' No. 1 digital currency, which has seen its value soar in value in 2017, fueling outsize interest from average investors and Wall Street players alike. Bitcoin has soared more than 500% year to date, compared with a roughly 15% climb for the S&P 500 index SPX, -1.11% , an 18% rally for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.87% , so far in 2017, and a nearly 26% return for the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -1.07% over the same period. The CME kicked off a product to reference bitcoin prices a year ago, and late last month announced a plans to launch futures contracts, which could pave the way for investment funds and other investors to make big bets on the vagaries of the popular, and very volatile, cybercurrency.