- The CME has climbed ranks on the list of leading BTC futures exchanges.
- The marketplace now holds the second position.
- Observers speculate different investment groups could drive the ascent.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) notional open interest (OI) has risen significantly, pushing the regulated derivatives marketplace to a higher rank on the list of largest Bitcoin (BTC) futures exchanges.
Typically, notional open interest reflects the dollar value represented by active or open derivative contracts. Based on this metric, CME has emerged as the second-largest BTC futures exchange, a step behind the offshore unregulated Binance platform.
CME Charges to the Top
According to live data by Coinglass, the CME’s notional open interest has gained 2.36% in the last 24 hours, peaking at $3.57 billion. Binance still retains the first position, with a notional open interest of $3.85 billion, gaining 0.4% in the last 24 hours.
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Notably, CME’s share in the monitored BTC futures market has risen to a new lifetime high of 25%, especially after the marketplace’s cash-settled futures contracts recently surpassed the 100,000 BTC mark for the first time in history.
In terms of BTC exchange based on options OI, the CME also ranks as the second-largest exchange but is still way behind Deribit, which leads with $11 billion. The CME and OKX follow with BTC options OIs of $1.64 billion and $755.77 million, respectively, while Binance trails at position five with $343.67 million.
While this is irrefutably commendable for the CME, keen observers are split on whether the marketplace’s ascent is driven by retail investors or increased institutional buying.
Who Is Driving the Surge?
According to on-chain analyst Leon Waidmann, there is a “big institutional action” happening off-chain on the BTC futures markets, and institutional investors could probably be the main drivers of the current BTC pump at the CME.
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While this might be true to some extent, retail investors played their part as well. On its Twitter (X) page, Matrixport noted that ProShares’ Bitcoin ETF registered an astronomical +420% surge in weekly trading volume. This ETF invests in CME BTC futures.
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