The volume of transactions and open interest rates for CME Group Bitcoin Futures seem to be close to an all-time high, as data from its firm website shows 5,388 contracts in open interest. In the first few days of the year, bitcoin futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) doubled.
Compared to the $ 110 million seen in early December, about $ 235 million positions (5,329 contracts) were opened on CME on January 17. Open interest is the sum of all contracts that have not expired, been exercised or physically delivered.
Cryptocurrency has changed hands at $ 8,600, representing a 20 percent increase on an annual basis. Open interest rates soared along with prices, confirming the uptrend. Bitcoin bottomed near $ 6,430 in mid-December and rose to a 2.5-month high of $ 9,188 on Sunday.
Each CME Bitcoin futures represents 5 BTC. In total, 5,328 contracts represent 26,640 bitcoins, worth about $ 233.2 million. This number is higher than any other monthly close CME has reported since Bitcoin Futures were launched in December 2017.
The general interest in cryptocurrency derivatives seems to be increasing recently, as institutional investors crave for cryptocurrencies to keep rising. Earlier this week, CME Group launched options for bitcoin futures and traded a total of 55 options in the launch. More than 17,000 contracts (equivalent to more than 85,000 bitcoins) were traded on January 8. The options for bitcoin futures from CME began well on January 13, seeing trading volume reach 55 contracts in the opening session.
On January 17, the option trading volume more than doubled to 122 contracts, with a notable amount of 610 BTC or $ 5.3 million, as each contract represents the year of bitcoin.
The increasing number at CME could reflect the institutional interest in growing cryptocurrencies and could accelerate bitcoin evolution as a mature asset class. Nearly 6,400 futures are traded each day (equal to 31,850 bitcoins) at the 2019 exchange. CME tweeted on December 17:
Bitcoin futures (BTC) celebrate second anniversary today. BTC has seen remarkable growth in volume and customer interest with nearly 2.5M contracts traded to date and 4.9K+ contracts traded daily. Download the full recap: https://t.co/oI4IiE5iQv pic.twitter.com/xKpebfJ66g
— CMEGroup (@CMEGroup) December 18, 2019
On January 14, other exchanges also saw increased activity over the past few months. The total volume of future increased transactions listed globally to more than $ 25 billion.
Read more:
- CME Is One Of The Lighting Platforms For Bitcoin
- CME’s Bitcoin Options Launched, The First Day’s Trading Volume Surpassed Bakkt