Bitcoin futures trading volume is setting an all-time-high on CME in May, according to a report published by the Block.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange group sent a note to their customers on May 21, stating that May is “turning out to be the best month ever for CME Bitcoin Futures.” Additionally, the note reports a record day of futures trading on May 13, with 33,677 contracts being exchanged for what could be compared to $1.3 billion in BTC. Day by day volume for Bitcoin future exchanging has likewise spiked amid the bitcoin rally in May to 14000 contracts, going up significantly from the 9900 contacts in April.
“Since launch in December 2017, we have traded over 1.6MM contracts (+8MM equivalent bitcoin) representing over $50BN in notional value ($4.2BN per month).” Added CME Group
The report also points to the increasing number of account creations which the firm interprets as a growing desire to hedge against BTC risk.
“The number of unique accounts continues to grow showing that the marketplace is increasingly using BTC futures to hedge bitcoin risk and/or access exposure.”
Despite the bitcoin rally in May which nearly doubled the price compared to April traders do not agree in the future valuation of bitcoin. Bitcoin Futures like CME and others offer traders to long or short the crypto asset without being exposed to the cryptocurrency risk.
Future markets have been for a long time a dominant product for the traditional financial markets. However, a lot of buzz circulates around futures being a tool to manipulate the price.
Bakkt is launching BTC futures in July this year but unlike traditional future contracts which are settled in cash, Bakkt future contracts will be settled in bitcoin.
On a futures platform, users can open long or short positions depending on their prediction about the asset value in the future. With bitcoin creating a double top bears an bulls are waiting for the next BTC price move.
Some expect a correction after the spike that happened in May, after a more than a year bear market and see a pullback to $6,000 the most probable thing.
On the other side bulls see Bitcoin entering in a strong an unstoppable bull market with all the indicators in favor of the new asset class. The logic behind this prediction is the confidence crypto is gaining with big players entering in the area: Fidelity – Nasdaq – NYSE – Yale – Harvard – Fairfax County Pension – Founders Fund – Union Square – Amazon – JPMorgan – Starbucks – IBM – Facebook.
All these big names showing big interest in cryptocurrency is like a vote that gives more confidence to the crypto space. This wasn’t the case in 2017 when BTC hit $ 20,000, so the next bull run will be really fueled by institutions and probably the FOMO will be bigger than in 2017.
Another thing that might have affected the bitcoin price is the U.S. – China trade war which is increasing the uncertainty about the economy. And everybody knows that Bitcoin is a good alternative in situations of economic uncertainty.