Bitcoin options trading growing on CME

The CME Group derivatives platform started trading Bitcoin options on Monday and has outperformed Bakkt since day one. There were 55 contracts, worth about 275 BTC, about $ 2.1 million. By comparison, Bakkt is currently recording about $ 1 million of options transactions, although they were launched on December 9th.

Tim McCourt, general manager of CME Group, told The Block in a telephone interview that he was satisfied with the first day of trading. He noted that there was a balanced distribution between transactions. He also stressed that the feedback from market participants was “great”.

“As far as their ability to monitor the market, to integrate all the data and all the technical aspects, everything worked as designed”,

McCourt concluded.

Trading of Bitcoin options on the FTX platform

Another Sunday, another derivative platform, FTX, launched its own Bitcoin options. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX, said the options reached $ 1 million in volume within two hours of launch. In the first 12 hours, approximately 2,000 contracts were negotiated.

Bitcoin FTX options are settled in US dollars, but are not available to US investors

The FTX platform was launched in May 2019 and aims to gain a significant market share in a space that is currently dominated by BitMEX, OKEx and Huobi. Last month, the company got an investment of “tens of millions” from Binance.

These developments illustrate the development of a strong and competitive derivatives market. So far, it has been dominated by companies such as BitMEX and Deribit.