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The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has made massive progress in the world of cryptocurrency derivatives, marking it as the second-largest Bitcoin futures exchange second only to Binance. The CME’s growth in open interest has reached $3.58 billion. With this, the regulated derivatives exchange to move two positions ahead compared to the previous week, propelling CME past other major exchanges like Bybit, with $2.6 billion, and OKX, with $1.78 billion in open interest.
CME’s prominence in the Bitcoin futures market can be attributed to its standard Bitcoin futures contract, which represents 5 BTC, and the micro contract, equal to a tenth of a Bitcoin. It’s important to note that offshore exchanges tend to focus on perpetual futures, rather than regular futures contracts. These futures are unique because they don’t have an expiration date.
Bitcoin institutional investment increases
A substantial portion of investments in CME futures has come through standard futures contracts. This reflects an influx of institutional interest in Bitcoin, especially during October when Bitcoin experienced a significant double-digit surge, propelling it to a new one-year high above the $35,000 mark.
CME’s increasing open interest has elevated the exchange to second place among futures crypto exchanges. The exchange’s cash-settled futures contracts also surpassed a volume of 100,000 BTC. This surge in trader interest has also enabled CME to capture a massive 25% of the Bitcoin futures market share. Open interest in Bitcoin refers to the total number of outstanding Bitcoin futures or options contracts available in the market. This metric quantifies the amount of money invested in Bitcoin derivatives at any given time. It serves as a gauge for the capital inflow and outflow in the market where rising open interest indicates a bullish sentiment, while declining open interest suggests a bearish sentiment.
As the CME continues to operate and grow in the cryptocurrency derivatives market, we are starting to see more increase in investors and institutions see the appeal and relevance of Bitcoin and its related financial products.