Two major markets for bitcoin futures contracts saw a major boost in volume on Wednesday.
Available market data shows that CBOE saw its highest-ever volume for bitcoin futures since it first debuted the contracts back in December. 18,210 contacts for the May futures were traded, along with 703 for the June contract and 87 for the July contract. No volume was reported for the exchange's August-dated contract.
CBOE Options Institute senior instructor Kevin Davitt, in a social media video posted on Thursday, said that "[the] average daily volume (ADV) runs about 6,600 in XBT Bitcoin Futures. Yesterday's volume was nearly three times ADV."
He went on to explain:
"Yesterday was the highest daily volume for bitcoin futures since their introduction here at CBOE nearly five months ago. The lead month May futures traded 18,210 contracts, and across the term structure a total of 19,000 bitcoin futures traded here yesterday. The previous high-volume session was January 17 with just less than 15,500 contracts traded."
Wednesday's volume was an outlier among the past several days, as well as the results seen during Thursday's session. On Monday, XBT Bitcoin Futures traded at 3,881, rising to 6,653 on Tuesday. On Thursday, volume was reported at 5,634 contracts as of press time.
CME, according to market data, also saw a big trading day on Wednesday.
The exchange saw the volume of its bitcoin futures contracts market double on Wednesday from the day before, shooting past 11,000 contracts. Unlike CBOE, it was CME's April 2018 contracts which saw the bulk of the spike, according to its website.
The spike in January's volume coincided with the expiration of the first set of contracts, Davitt said. However, Wednesday's volume did not, nor did it have a 15-20 percent range in futures Davitt would otherwise have expected, he added.
"We will certainly be watching to see if this is a volume aberration or if more and more institutional types are moving into crypto," he said. However, he noted that "the overall bullish sentiment continues in XBT Bitcoin Futures."
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