Derivatives Market Breaks Multiple Records as Bitcoin Touched $16,000

Bitcoin derivatives platforms saw huge volumes for options and futures contracts as the leading crypto reached for $16,000.

Huobi and OKEx rapidly expanding crypto derivatives market share

Key Takeaways

  • The total volume of unsettled futures and options contracts reached an all-time high (ATH).
  • The trading volume for Bitcoin futures and options in the last 24 hours was $41 billion and $870 million, respectively.
  • The positions held by these traders, nonetheless, are far from over-leveraged. 

Share this article

Both the total open interest for BTC futures and options broke new records today as Bitcoin touched its yearly high of $15,968 on Bitstamp. 

Bitcoin Traders Break Volume Records 

Bitcoin futures traders logged a daily volume of $41 billion, $2 billion less than the token’s all-time high. However, the total open interest (OI) for BTC futures surpassed $5.7 billion, a new record. 

The options contracts volume data for Bitcoin is equally bullish. The total volume for BTC options OI crossed $3.5 billion, a new high for the metric. Moreover, the Deribit exchange saw trading volumes accounting for 84% of the total OI. 

Deribit is the largest options trading platform, with 80% of the total market volume. 

Nevertheless, the position data of derivatives traders is still not yet euphoric. 

For example, the last time futures OI was at $5.7 billion, the funding rate for perpetual swaps was 0.055%. Currently, this rate is at0.006%. 

Bitcoin Futures Rate
Bitcoin futures perpetual funding rate. Source: Glassnode

Options traders, on the other hand, recorded an increase in negative interest. The put-to-call ratio for BTC options rose from 0.56 to 0.69, marking an increase of put positions. 

Bitcoin Options Put/Call Ratio
Bitcoin options put/call ratio. Source: Skew

Still, if past tops in the put-to-call ratio of options or the funding rate for futures is taken as reference, there is much more room for growth in Bitcoin price from a derivatives perspective. 

In the last two days, over $75 million have been liquidated in shorts on BitMEX alone

This is considerably low from the levels in the past when liquidations shot up to hundreds of millions. 

It points out that spot buyers are driving the current bull run and have taken out short derivatives players trying to guess the top.

Share this article

Loading...