Cryptocurrency derivatives trading volumes climbed 32% in May to a new record high of $602 billion, according to data analytics company Cryptocompare.
Total spot volumes grew at a slower pace, rising 5% to $1.27 trillion in May, the London-based firm said in a new report published June 4, 2020.
The figures show increasing investor interest in trading derivatives – contracts signed by at least two people to buy or sell a digital asset at an agreed price in the future. For the review month, derivatives market share rose to 32% compared to 27% in April.
May’s all-time-high represents a slight increase over the previous record of $600 billion in March.
Cryptocompare notes that bitcoin (BTC) derivatives saw large increases in trading volume last month, with institutional player Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) rising fastest at 59% to $7.2 billion.
However, Huobi accounted for the largest trade volume of $176 billion, up 29% month-on-month followed by Okex and Binance with $152 billion and $139 billion trades’ worth, respectively.
Hong Kong-based Bitmex traded $94.8 billion, up 37% since April while trades at Deribit soared 22% to $13.4 billion.
Institutional options volumes on CME reached a monthly record of 5,996 contracts, up sixteen-fold from April. The regulated exchange also broke a new daily record on May 28, with trades of 1,418 Bitcoin options contracts. Derebit’s options volume spiked 109% in May to $3.06 billion.
CME’s futures contracts also gained by 36% in May, to volumes of 166,000.
Per the report, spot trading volumes surged sharply a day before the third halving, reaching $64.7 billion on May 10. But this fares lowly compared to the volume spikes of $66.2 billion on April 30, and that of $75.9 billion on March 13, a day after the Black Thursday BTC crash.
Cryptocompare said the bulk of spot trading happened on exchanges it considers low-tier and unregulated, accounting for $49.88 billion of the volume while top-tier exchanges traded $14.86 billion.
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