Almost a month after breaking its record twice in two consecutive days, volumes on Bitcoin futures offered by Intercontinental Exchange [ICE] subsidiary, Bakkt, hit yet another milestone.
The institutional investing platform registered its highest-ever figure of $147 million in volume with 12,791 contracts traded on 25th August, as per the data from the crypto-analytic site, Skew. As compared to its previous high in July for Bitcoin’s monthly futures, Bakkt’s figures were up by 15%.
On the other hand, the open interest [OI], which is an indicator of the total number of outstanding contracts held by investors, declined and was found to be at $9.5 million. This may be due to the fact that the latest move followed a correction in the underlying asset price that plunged to $11,397 as opposed to its previous high, which was driven by Bitcoin breaking the almost three-month range-bound trading channel.
Bakkt’s physically-settled contracts which are paid out in BTC registered a volume of $134 million while its cash-settled contracts, which are delivered in US Dollars, accounted for $13 million.
However, New York Stock Exchange-owned Bakkt wasn’t the only institutional exchange that recorded a new peak. Its rival, Chicago Mercantile Exchange [CME] also saw nearly a month-high surging to a volume of $935 million while its open interest was found to be at $713 million, according to data from Skew Analytics.
Leading cryptocurrency exchange and derivative platform, OKEx‘s ‘BTC Top trader sentiment index’ also spiked to 0.59 as volumes rose to $4.5 billion despite a low open interest. However, these figures were still negligible when compared in a macro aspect of the derivatives market.
The aggregated daily volume of the collective derivatives platform, as noted by Skew, suffered from poor figures in August. It continued to remain below $20 billion for the most part of the month since the underlying asset’s price sustained major corrections and failed to breach $12,000 despite multiple breakout attempts.
However, with the latest surge, the aggregated daily volume also rose, though not significantly, to $17 billion, a level that was last seen on 19th August when Bitcoin’s price soared to $12,278. Could this spur a rally for Bitcoin in the near-term?