CME Bitcoin Futures Daily Volume Spikes 93% in Q2 2018

CME Bitcoin Futures Daily Volume Spikes 93% in Q2 2018

CME Group’s bitcoin futures average daily volume spiked 93% in the second quarter over the previous quarter, while open interest posted a 58% increase, the company noted on Twitter. Average daily volume jumped from 1,854 in the first quarter to 3,577 in the second quarter, while open interest rose from 1,523 to 2,405 in the same period.

CME provides its CF bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) and CME CF bitcoin Real-Time Index (BRTI) as standardized reference rate and spot price indices. The indices have independent oversight are intended to accelerate the professionalization of bitcoin trading.

CME CF Crypto Currencies Indices have produced the BRR and BRTI rates since November of 2016 with numerous bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms – including Bitstamp, GDAX, itBit and Kraken – that provide pricing data.

The BRR aggregates the trade of the bitcoin exchanges during a specific window into a daily reference rate of the bitcoin price in U.S. dollars. The calculation is geared to maximize transparency and real-time replicability in the spot markets.

Recent Gains

The BRR price has risen over the past four days, increasing from $6717.69 on July 17 to $7361.88. While the BRR rate was $7361.88, the BRTI rate was $7398.10 as of this writing.

CME also lists Ether-dollar indices. The Ether dollar reference rate was $460.86 while the Ether dollar real-time index was $462.41 at this writing.

CME and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) are the only regulated U.S. exchanges offering bitcoin futures products. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has filed to list bitcoin ETFs, but has not introduced cryptocurrency futures products.

Also read: CME Group launches indexes to track bitcoin’s price

Volumes Continue To Rise

bitcoin futures volumes rose to all-time highs in late April, with CME and CBOE holding a combined $670 million.

CME traders exchanged more than 11,000 contracts, worth 56,010 BTC at the time. According to CME’s BRR for April 25, the contracts equated to more than $497 million in single-day volume.

CBOE had 19,000 contracts traded on its platform for the day, worth around $168 million, a record that tripled the exchange’s average daily volume for the futures product.

LedgerX, which launched bitcoin derivatives in October, was the first regulated U.S. exchange to offer bitcoin derivatives. Trading volume is much lower than CME and

CBOE, but in May LedgerX reported that volume rose to $30 million per month over the prior quarter.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Published at Sat, 21 Jul 2018 18:12:57 +0000

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