The open interest in CME bitcoin futures hit a new high at $1.47 billion.
Over the past week, in fact, it has grown by as much as 42%, from $1.03 billion in the previous week to nearly a billion and a half.
The previous all-time record was $1.13 billion, recorded at the end of the first week of the month, on December 6th, so the one recorded last week is 30% higher than the previous record.
In fact, it was the entire crypto derivatives market that grew significantly as a whole, most likely driven by new all-time highs in the price of BTC.
Given that open interest is the value of outstanding contracts that have yet to be settled, the new record suggests that more money is flowing into this market and that many traders are probably expecting increased price volatility in the near term.
Furthermore, since CME bitcoin futures are traded on the Chicago exchange, they are derivative products for traditional investors and the new record shows that in the course of this 2020 the interest of traditional investors in BTC speculation has increased a lot.
Considering the crypto markets as well, the aggregate open interest of all bitcoin futures contracts rose to $8.78 billion, clearly revealing that the largest volumes generated by these contracts are traded on crypto platforms.
Bitcoin Futures, open interest on the CME and other exchanges
The single platform with the highest open interest is OKEx, with $1.56 billion, followed by CME with 1.47 and Binance with 1.4. In third and fourth position there are two other crypto platforms, Bybit and Huobi.
The aggregate open interest of ETH futures contracts also reached a new all-time high at 2.06 billion dollars.
However, these trades are all on crypto platforms, although they will also be launched on the CME in February.
Therefore the interest is not only growing for Bitcoin but in general for the whole crypto market.
Moreover, the crypto derivatives market seems to be set to increase significantly in size in the near future, revealing that the interest of investors and speculators is following a long-term growth trend.
