The Bitcoin price has been developing very well since October 2023. An important reason for this is the introduction of spot ETFs on the American market, but other crypto exchange products also appear to be very popular.
The so-called open interest (OI) in Bitcoin futures contracts reached a new high on Wednesday.
Interest in Bitcoin futures has surged
Market data from CoinGlass shows that the IO for Bitcoin (BTC) futures is nearly $24.2 billion at the time of writing. Open Interest is the total number of open futures contracts that have not yet been closed, exercised or expired. It is a measure of trading activity and liquidity in the market for these futures.
This is the highest value since December 2021 and is almost one All-time high. Only in April 2021 was the open interest slightly higher at $24.3 billion – so it hardly makes a difference. We will likely see a new all-time high later this month.
First up is the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) with an open interest of more than 125,000 BTC or around $6.5 billion. Binance follows closely behind with open positions of over 117,000 BTC worth $6.1 billion. In third and fourth place are Bybit and OKX, which are already significantly smaller at 78 BTC and 46 BTC, respectively.
Crypto derivatives are popular
It can be said that cryptocurrencies in general seem to be very popular at the moment. Last December, trading volume across the entire spot market rose to its highest level since the end of 2022, totaling more than $1 trillion.
The spot market is still catching up from the past few years, but derivatives appear to be becoming more popular. For example, Ethereum (ETH) options hit a new record back in January, and open interest appears to be following suit this month. There are also plans to create options contracts based on the new spot ETFs. Even the advent of spot ETFs for Bitcoin was seemingly No reason to cause shrinkage.
The CME also made a donation last November big win in his pocket, namely the one in front of it Market share of Bitcoin futures contracts. It used to be Binance, but it’s been like this since November the CME is once again the largest.