Binance Keeps Breaking Bitcoin Futures Records Amidst Disappointing Volumes in Broad Market

The leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance recently reported a wildly successful first month of its digital assets futures platform.

In the currently lackluster market, Binance’s Bitcoin futures has emerged as the winner. According to Skew Markets, Binance’s futures product has set a new daily trading volume record on Tuesday.

With more than $700 million of activity on BTC/USD futures product, Binance has jumped to the second spot, behind BitMEX, beating Hyobi, bitFlyer, CoinFlex, and others.

Binance just had a record volume day for its newly launched BTCUSDT futures product : $700mln+ traded on the 15th pic.twitter.com/w0MX0csBEt

— skew (@skewdotcom) October 16, 2019

Low Volume Everywhere Else

While Binance is making new records, BitMEX saw its volume dropping to $1 billion (on Saturday) compared to $14 billion hits in late June, noted Skew Markets.

The Bitcoin spot market also saw an extremely low volume. During this weekend, it fell as low as $140 million and although it has spiked to $344 million, it is still low, as noted by Mati Greenspan, a senior analyst at eToro.

From a peak of $4 billion per day, a few months ago, less than $200 million has been changing hands in Bitcoin currently. P2P exchange Localbitcoins also shares a similar story.

Losing the Momentum

When it comes to the Intercontinental Exchange's (ICE) Bakkt, the highly anticipated exchange made a cautious start, registering a trading volume of just 72 BTC in the first 24 hours.

However, commentators like Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee and Ari Paul among others believe Bakkt would saw a gradual climb.

On Oct. 10, Bakkt reached its all-time high, registering an 800% increase (224 BTC) from the previous day when it traded only 25 BTC. However, the day after the peak, it saw a drop of 51%. Although, 50 contracts seems to be its average daily trading.

Contracts traded so far today: 2 BTC
Last traded price: $8,282.50
Trading day progress: 40%

— Bakkt Volume Bot (@BakktBot) October 15, 2019

Although Bakkt’s opening month has been full of trepidation, it remains a critical one for the cryptocurrency space.

Bakkt Open Interest down 50% in 1 week 📉 pic.twitter.com/g9yIwsEy5i

— skew (@skewdotcom) October 16, 2019

The institutional flow remains strong

CME Group is also seeing low activity, recording its lowest monthly volume.

Last quarter has been a good one for Chicago-based exchange operator, with the number of open contracts up 61% from a year earlier, suggesting growing demand from institutional investors.

Moreover, despite the BTC price being down 25%, the open interest in CME contracts was down just 1% from Q2 levels.

“Institutional flow remained strong, with 454 new accounts added, compared with 231 added in the third quarter of 2018,” CME said.

About 50% of the CME’s Bitcoin futures trading volume during the Q3 was from outside the US, with 26% coming from the Asia Pacific region and 21% from Europe and the Middle East.

CME that debuted its Bitcoin futures in 2017 is now facing competition from Bakkt. The platform, however, is planning to introduce options in Bitcoin futures in Q1 of 2020.