Hi, yes this is derivatives - futures on currencies. It's particularly good for day-trading. Scalping involves tightly controlling risk on each trade, and going in many times per day for as many 'ticks' or 'pips' as possible. For instance, if trading the EURO Sept contract 1 pip = US $12.5 or the smallest increment you can trade is 1/2 a pip = 1 tick= US$6.25 ( only on the Euro as each contract has it's own smallest denomination). The underlying is Spot FX which most people are familiar. But traders often want a 'regulated ' exchange such as the CME because all trades a routed through this one exchange. Thats way pricing is fair and not manipulated such as in FOREX which has many decentralised exchanges, the counter-party is your broker or in DMA accounts a large bank inter-market. But price is merely negotiable. It is not a pure market like in futures, where they can't skim a few ticks off you each trade and call it 'free brokerage'. Professional trader's prefer price transparency and will pay commissions to an exchange for this...also the cost side can be an expense like any business so it is desirable to be a 'known' quantity. Hope that helps....