Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs has reportedly opened up futures trading on Bitcoin to Wall Street executives. According to Bloomberg Law, last month the investment firm began offering trading with non-deliverable forwards, a derivative tied to the price of Bitcoin (BTC) — roughly $56,000 at the time of publication — for which investors can be paid in fiat. Goldman Sachs reportedly lessens its risk to the crypto asset’s infamous volatility by buying and selling Bitcoin futures in block trades on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange using the crypto trading unit of DRW Holdings, Cumberland. "Institutional demand continues to grow significantly in …

In the past 30 days, Ether (ETH) price decoupled from Bitcoin (BTC) to post a 67.5% gain, while the leading cryptocurrency price has barely moved. Ether's $3,605 all-time high on May 5 was responsible for boosting the asset's futures open interest to $10 billion. This movement brings up some crucial questions as the dominance of Bitcoin's derivatives markets appears to be challenged at the moment. On May 4, Ether's aggregate futures volumes surpassed Bitcoin's for the first time in history. Volume data from Coinalyze shows that $2.6 billion CME Bitcoin futures traded, along with $1.1 billion in CME Ether futures …

Bitcoin (BTC) entirely recovered from its recent drop that saw the price fall to the $53,000 support level. This move back to $57,500 relieved bulls from the negative pressure of the May 7, 3,500 BTC options contract, which represents $200 million in open interest along with a $1.1 billion options expiry. Today's swift recovery could have been partially driven by the news that New Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) partnered with Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) to create a framework for U.S. banks to offer crypto trading services. Patrick Sells, the bank solutions chief at NYDIG, told CNBC that several banks …

Bitcoin (BTC) has been struggling to sustain the $55,000 support level for the past 16 days, or basically since the April 17 record-high $5-billion long contracts liquidation. The rejection that took place after the $64,900 all-time high had a devastating impact on the sentiment of retail traders, as measured by the significant drop in the perpetual futures funding rate. However, despite Bitcoin's recent underperformance and May 4's 6.5% drop, pro traders have been buying the dip for the past 24 hours. These whales and arbitrage desk movements are reflected in the OKEx futures long-to-short ratio, as well as Bitfinex's margin …

On May 7, a total of $470 million in Ether (ETH) options are set to expire, and "slaughter" is really the only word that describes what is about to happen to bearish ETH traders. Currently, almost every single one of the 75,909 put (sell) option contracts will become worthless if Ether manages to remain above $3,100 until Friday 8:00 am UTC. Ether's growth has been fueled by the growth of decentralized finance (DeFi), which has recently surpassed $60 billion in total value locked, according to DeBank. Yat Siu, chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands, perfectly described the scene: "DeFi will …

As Ether (ETH) made a $2,800 all-time on April 29, so did its futures open interest. The $8.5 billion figure marks a 52% monthly increase and shows robust trading activity behind the meteoric price rise. Some analysts might dismiss Ether derivatives, considering CME's future has $355 million in open interest compared to Bitcoin's $2.4 billion. However, Ether contracts were only launched a couple of months ago. Both FTX and Deribit require 100% full-KYC for their clients, and these markets hold a combined $2 billion in ETH open interest. To this in perspective, the open interest on silver futures currently stands …

Bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrency market saw minor losses on April 29 as the market heads into the expiry of $4.2 billion worth of (BTC) options contracts. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that since reaching a high above $56,400 on April 28, the price of Bitcoin has dropped more than 6% back down near the $53,000 support level while Ethereum (ETH) continues to trade above $2,700. Despite the lull in market activity, signs of mainstream cryptocurrency integration continue to emerge on a near-daily basis. Earlier today Coinbase announced that users can now purchase up to $25,000 worth of …

Bitcoin (BTC) has been struggling to sustain above the $53,000 support for the past three days, while Ether (ETH) soared to a new all-time high at $2,800. In the current scenario, some traders would rather wait for Friday's CME futures expiry before entering long BTC positions, as historically, its price tends to correct ahead of the event. On the other hand, Ether's price has been positively impacted by the European Investment Bank launching a "digital bond" sale using the Ethereum network. The EIB is issuing a two-year 100-million-euro ($120.8 million) digital bond, with the deal to be led by Goldman …

What’s interesting about this particular options expiry is that the current max pain price for the expiry is $54,000, which is very close to the current trading price. The max pain price is the price at which most options are rendered worthless, thus leading to the loss of the option premium for the options holders. Although, in this situation, options writers stand to gain. On April 29, over $4.2 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) options contracts will expire. This expiry comes after Bitcoin has seen a recovery from $48,000 to currently trade in the $54,000 range. The total open interest …

Bitcoin's (BTC) 2021 performance has been impressive, but traders waiting for a record-breaking monthly candle are likely to be disappointed this week. After peaking at $64,900 on April 14, a jaw-breaking 27% correction followed, causing BTC price to drop to the $46,000 level. This downside move obliterated more than $9 billion long BTC futures contracts in a swift action that was previously unthinkable to most investors. Even though the Bitcoin price recovered $5,800 over the past 48-hours, in the options markets, the bulls were not able to take the bears by surprise as both sides are virtually balanced for April …

A new global cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, Globe Derivative Exchange — or GlobeDX — continued its preparation for the platform's launch by securing another major raise. GlobeDX announced Wednesday that the firm successfully raised $18 million through a new funding round featuring investors like seed money startup accelerator Y Combinator and Tim Draper’s Draper Dragon fund. Other investors included crypto exchange OKEx, Pantera Capital, Republic Crypto, CMT Digital and Wave Financial. Scheduled for launch in early May, GlobeDX will allow users to trade major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), as well as decentralized finance tokens with up to 100x …

The last couple of weeks have been nothing short of a roller coaster for Ether (ETH), which oscillated between $2,000 and a record-high $2,650. The 20% crash on April 17 caused a $1-billion liquidation on long futures contracts, and it also drastically reduced investors’ appetite for risk. However, as displayed above, the 28% gain over the last couple of days caused the open interest on Ether futures to reach $8.2 billion, which is just 5% below its April 15 record. A similar event took place in the options markets, which have grown by 45% since the March 25 expiry. The …