CME: Bitcoin Futures Average Daily Trading Volume Jumped by 41% in Q3
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) on Wednesday said that the Bitcoin Futures daily trading volumes are on a steep rise this quarter. According to CME, there is a 41% jump in average daily trading volumes over the previous quarter.
As per the data provided by CME, the average daily volumes for Bitcoin futures hit 5053 contracts in Q3 2018, a considerable jump from 3577 contracts from the Q2 2018. In comparison to Q1 2018, which saw average daily trading volumes at 1854 contracts, this is a 170 percent jump in Q3.
The CME data also shows that there is a 19% in open interest (OI), which is the number of open contracts on Bitcoin futures. CME is one of the world’s largest derivatives marketplace. It was one of the first to introduce Bitcoin futures contract last year in December 2017, along with the CBOE exchange. The news of arrival of Bitcoin futures had put the cryptocurrency on an unprecedented bull trajectory that caused it to hit its all-time high pf $20,000 in December 2017.
Although CME is currently witnessing a growing interest for the BTC futures contracts, the company is not willing to rush through the process of introducing new cryptocurrency products, said CEO Terry Duffy.
Back in July 2018, Duffy said: “Before we get into any other cryptocurrencies, we’re going to see how this one goes, and I think that six to eight months as a listing of bitcoin is not a good enough barometer to decide what your future should be for any other cryptocurrency. I will not just put products up there to see where they’re going to go. I will take a wait and see approach with Bitcoin for now.”
A number of global financial institutions are recently warming up to the cryptocurrency market. Big players like the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and Fidelity Investments are launching cryptocurrency trading and custodial services to attract big institutional players to the cryptocurrency market.
One thing that has kept institutional investors from participating in the crypto market is the repeated number of hacks vaporizing millions of dollars of investors’ funds. However, with big financial service giants and institutions launching crypto products, it will help to restore the confidence of investors.
CFTC chief J. Christopher Giancarlo recently stated that participations by institutional players will help the crypto market to mature over the period of time. He said: "We've still got a long way to go, there's a lot of issues in some of these spot exchanges, a lack of transparency, a lot of conflict of interest, a lack of systems and systems safeguards, and that's a concern. But you know, like all things, it takes time to mature, and with the movement of more institutional investors into the space, I think we'll see that maturation.”