The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group experienced a record-setting third quarter for and futures and options contracts trading. This surge in trading activity is indicative of an increased participation from institutional investors in the crypto derivatives market.
The average Bitcoin futures contracts during Q3 hit a record 15,800, marking an 11% increase quarter-over-quarter. Alongside this, open interest (OI) for Ether futures and options contracts grew by 22%, with Ether options contracts alone seeing a staggering 75% rise.
Despite the brief spot market volatility during Q3 that led to Bitcoin and Ether, the top cryptocurrencies by market cap, falling 12% and 15% respectively from their annual highs, both cryptocurrencies showed notable year-to-date (YTD) growth. Bitcoin’s YTD price surged by 62%, while Ether’s increased by 39%.
A record open interest was reached on October 25 with 20,380 contracts, translating to a notional exposure of $3.5 billion. This notable achievement underscores the rising institutional interest in regulated crypto trading platforms. Gio Vicioso highlighted the dramatic increase in Bitcoin options trading volume and open interest, along with the muted overall trading volumes for the year, as evidence of CME Group’s (NASDAQ:) role as a trusted risk management platform.
As of October 30, CME’s open interest surpassed competitors with $3.58 billion, overtaking Bybit’s $2.6 billion and OKX’s $1.78 billion. This coincided with a surge in cash-settled futures contracts exceeding 100,000 BTC during Bitcoin’s double-digit growth to over $35,000 in October. CME’s standard futures contracts valued at five BTC and micro contracts at a tenth of a Bitcoin set it apart from offshore exchanges’ perpetual futures focus.
CME now ranks second only to Binance in the Bitcoin futures market, further solidifying its position as a significant player in the regulated crypto trading platform space.
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