Bitcoin News Today – The world’s largest digital currency by market cap – Bitcoin (BTC) – has been experiencing some issues over the past days. The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has been capped on the upside at the $8,500 mark. The digital currency recently made an attempt to break over that level. However, it failed to test that level and the best it could do was to hit the $8,400 mark. Nevertheless, despite the poor price performance of the coin over the past few days, the interest of investors in the coin has been strong.
Investor Interest in Bitcoin Is Still Strong despite Poor Price Action
In a recent tweet, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group disclosed that customer interest in CME Bitcoin futures is still strong in the third quarter of this year despite BTC price pullback. According to the statement that was tweeted on October 9, daily open interest (OI) is more than 4,600 contracts, an increase of 61 percent compared to the third quarter of last year. This significant increase is because of the increased, strong interest of institutional investors.
In the third quarter of 2018, open interest was 2,873. In Q3 of 2019, open interest – which is the number of outstanding derivative contracts that have not been settled – has risen to 4,629. The firm noted that this happened despite the fact that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) down by almost 25 percent. According to a previous report, CME is adding options to its BTC futures contracts in Q1 of 2020, awaiting regulatory review.
Tim McCourt – the CME Group global head of equity index and alternative investment products – said:
“Based on increasing client demand and robust growth in our Bitcoin futures markets, we believe the launch of options will provide our clients with additional flexibility to trade and hedge their bitcoin price risk.”
Bitcoin Futures Trading Is On the Rise
McCourt said that Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading had picked up. He added that May was a record month, as they traded 34,000 Bitcoin futures contracts equivalent to 170,000 BTC worth $1.3 billion. Whereas, institutional interest in CME BTC futures contracts peaked in early summer this year. He also said that he expects future trading volume to also come from miners that are looking for more precise exposures, and not only traders. He further added that:
“While futures give you a one-for-one exposure […] an option gives you varying strike-price levels and can give you either downside protection or upside exposure at a fraction of the underlying price.”
Princess Ogono is a writer, lawyer and fitness enthusiast. She believes cryptocurrencies are the future. When she's not writing, she spends time with her adorable cat, Ginger and works out often.
