CME Group Outpaces Competition Becoming the World’s Largest Bitcoin Futures Market
Financial derivatives products for bitcoin have grown massively during the last few months. On Friday evening (EST), Arcane Research explained that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has surpassed Okex as the largest bitcoin futures provider. The regulated derivatives market at CME has doubled month after month as incoming interest has created more demand for CME’s bitcoin futures.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group) is the world’s largest financial derivatives exchange that trades in various asset classes. The exchange first launched its bitcoin futures products back in December 2017, and since then the demand for crypto derivatives has skyrocketed.
On October 14, 2020, the investment manager Wilshire Phoenix published a study which says that “CME Bitcoin Futures contribute more to price discovery than its related spot markets.”
“CME Bitcoin Futures have grown to become significant, this is not only demonstrated through trading volume and open interest, but also by influence on spot price formation,” the investment manager’s research called “Efficient Price Discovery in the Bitcoin Markets” said.
On October 24, 2020, news.Bitcoin.com reported on how CME Group became the second-largest derivatives market for bitcoin futures in terms of open interest. Two key events helped push CME’s futures above the competitors; the crypto support announcement from Paypal, and the legal troubles surrounding the derivatives exchange Bitmex.
This week, CME Group has surpassed Okex and is the largest bitcoin futures provider at the time of publication. The exchange has captured over $1.16 billion in open interest toward its bitcoin futures market product. This is just a hair above the exchange Okex, which commands $1.07 billion in bitcoin futures open interest.
The research and analysis firm Arcane Research tweeted about the latest CME Group milestone after obtaining data from Skew.com. “According to data from Skew.com, CME is now the largest futures market for bitcoin. Institutional investors are here,” Arcane tweeted on November 27.
Other bitcoin derivatives exchanges that are also seeing notable open interest spikes include Binance, Huobi, and Bybit. In fact, according to Arcane Research’s recent tweet, Bybit and Bitmex share the same amount of open interest.
The bitcoin derivatives exchange Bakkt, which deals in physically-settled bitcoin futures is barely a blip on the radar compared to competitors.
What do you think about CME outpacing the competitors like Okex when it comes to bitcoin futures open interest? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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