Pointing to data from Skew, a market intelligence company, Arcane stated that open interest in CME’s Bitcoin futures contract has touched $1.16 billion. OKEx, in the meantime, recorded $1.07 billion.
Referring to an increase in investors’ activity, Arcane stated “Institutional investors are here.”
Transaction value in CME’s Bitcoin futures market has increased more than 100% in the last month as increasing number of traders look for investing in the numero uno crypto as it skyrocketed to almost its historical high.
Futures trading are characterized by huge volatility, particularly as expiry comes closer and contract holders start fine tuning their positions days before the arrival of expiry date. Notably, November futures contract, identified by ticker BTCX20, expired yesterday.
Cryptocurrency exchanges Huobi and Binance have also grown into top players in futures market. On the basis of open interest, they will take the third and fourth-largest BTC futures platforms, respectively.
Bybit, which also found a place in the list published by Arcane, announced a few days before that it will roll out a quarterly Bitcoin futures contract soon.
According to data from @skewdotcom, CME is now the largest futures market for #bitcoin!
Institutional investors are here?? pic.twitter.com/6GgQdrMw12
— Arcane Research (@ArcaneResearch) November 27, 2020
The futures market is crucial bellwether for the adoption of Bitcoin as it implies conventional investors are entering the fray. The bull market seen three years back was dominated majorly by retail traders, but the current surge is fueled primarily by institutional investors.
CME, specifically, is turning out to be an important platform for price discovery of Bitcoin, as per investment manager Wilshire Phoenix. CME’s importance, according to Wilshire, is “not only demonstrated through trading volume and open interest, but also by influence on spot price formation.”