Since the inception of Bitcoin, volatility has been a part of the cryptocurrency narrative even before exchanges and the current mainstream mentions. Now that traditional markets are showing volatility further exacerbated than anti-fragile cryptocurrency during the coronavirus pandemic, the community is seeing how traditional marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange handle equity and commodity volatility through circuit breaker implementation. In cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, liquidation auctions have been the answer for periods of market turbulence. The prominence of the traditional marketplaces triggering the circuit breakers has led some cryptocurrency exchanges to implement similar measures. So as the community debates …

A study by TokenInsight indicates that the total futures trading volume in the crypto industry reached over $2.1 trillion in Q1 2020. This is an increase of 314% from the 2019 Q4 average. According to the “2020 Q1 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report”, except for a slight decline in Q4 2019, the trading volume of cryptocurrency futures grew in 2019. The total market turnover in Q1 2020 is roughly eight times than Q1 2019. For trading volume analysis, TokenInsight included BitMEX, OKEx, Huobi DM, Binance Futures, Deribit, Bitget, Binance JEX, FTX, Gate.io, BFX.NU, BitZ, and KuMEX, in addition to some …

Major crypto exchange Binance claims to have become the largest options venue in the cryptocurrency market, having hit $295 million in traded volume as of April 20. In an interview with Cointelegraph on April 23, the vice president of Binance Futures, Aaron Gong, said that the platform had overtaken its counterparts by daily traded volume on April 14 — just one day after its official launch. Gong explained that the contract had been designed to tackle what Binance perceived to be the key drawbacks of existing crypto options products — low liquidity, high premiums and large spread. An options contract …

Cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX announced a new Ether (ETH)-based futures contract on its trading platform. According to an April 24 announcement, the new derivative contract will feature a fixed Bitcoin (BTC) multiplier which will be unaffected by the Ether price in U.S. dollars. BitMEX explains that this feature allows traders to long or short Ether’s USD exchange rate without holding either ETH or dollars. The announcement explains: “Traders post margin in XBT [Bitcoin], and earn or lose Bitcoin as the ETH/USD rate changes.” The exchange plans to launch the ETHUSD futures contracts with a maximum leverage of 50x on May 5, …

BitMEX, one of the world’s biggest crypto derivatives exchanges, is still struggling to recover from a major market sell-off that followed the Black Thursday crash in March. According to an April 21 report by crypto analytics firm Coin Metrics, BitMEX has continued losing in both open interest and volume for Bitcoin (BTC) futures since last month’s historic market crash. At the same time, Binance’s Bitcoin futures trading arm, Binance Futures, has been increasingly gaining momentum, the report said. This data comes from Coin Metrics’ 47th “State of the Network” report, devoted to understanding the impact of the Black Thursday on …

It’s becoming a little more common for exchanges to have the government’s blessing to trade BTC derivatives. Bitnomial Exchange is the latest to join this mostly private party, having received a so-called “order of designation” from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), granting it the status of a designated contract market. This means Bitnomial joins names like Bakkt, CME, LegerX, and CBOE — the few companies who are already trading these crypto derivatives. Bitcoin ETFs continue to be rejected by the SEC, but the CFTC lets some exchanges offer this type of product. It's physically settled in Bitcoin, so the …

Move, an options contract which tracks Bitcoin’s (BTC) daily volatility, recently saw a 25% 30-day trading volume increase on the crypto derivatives platform, Delta Exchange. According to an announcement which Delta Exchange sent to Cointelegraph on April 16, Move contracts worth $8 million were traded on the platform over the past 30 days. The platform also observed an additional $1 million worth of Ether (ETH) volatility tracking contracts traded during the same time period. The exchange’s CEO Pankaj Balani said: “Whilst the first 2 weeks of March saw just over 1Mn worth of BTC MOVE contracts traded, this number was …

Despite the volatility of the March 12 - 13 crypto market meltdown, Coinbase has identified several unusual methods through which traders were profiting amid the chaos. The crash saw rare profits being generated through ‘crypto-and-carry’ derivatives arbitrage, stablecoin speculation, and the failure of MakerDAO’s auction protocol. Derivatives arbitrage through ‘crypto-and-carry’ trades Coinbase asserts that the sudden flip in market sentiment from bullish to bearish created opportunities for derivative arbitrage through “crypto-and-carry” trades. With the exchange estimating that the crypto market is usually net-60% bullish with futures prices higher than spot prices, Coinbase asserts that arbitrage through derivatives is typically executed …

CryptoCompare has published its monthly report analyzing the trade activity on crypto exchanges. The record-breaking crash of March 12 and 13 drove new all-time volume highs in both the spot and derivatives markets. March 13 sets record for daily spot trades The report states that March 13 produced the single greatest volume in the history of crypto assets — with all exchanges and markets producing $75.9 billion in trade activity over 24 hours. $54.3 billion of 71.5% of trades came from ‘Lower Tier’ exchanges, while ‘Top Tier’ exchanges generated $21.6 billion in volume. Despite Binance and OKEx representing the largest …

As the volume of Bitcoin (BTC) derivatives trading continues to rise, the cryptocurrency industry keeps tapping more crypto markets, like stablecoin Tether (USDT), for futures trading. KuMEX, a derivatives arm of IDG-backed crypto exchange, KuCoin, is planning to roll out USDT-margined Bitcoin perpetual contracts on March 30, 2020, the firm officially announced on March 27. KuMEX currently supports only Bitcoin and USDT While the new type of futures contract will be launched next week, KuMEX users are already able to deposit USDT via the web or public API starting from March 26, the company said. KuMEX offers crypto derivatives trading …

A cryptocurrency derivatives exchange has announced it is launching USDT linear perpetual contracts, alongside a plethora of features. During an “ask me anything” session, Bybit revealed that hedging will be a core offering for its new USDT perpetual contract — allowing traders to hold long and short positions in USDT simultaneously. Traders will also have the freedom to assign different levels of leverage for their long and short positions — switching between cross and isolated margins with ease. Bybit says it is capitalizing on the growing trend for option products, all while delivering a straightforward solution that eliminates unnecessary complexities …

A report produced by derivatives analysis firm, Acuiti, has revealed a growing interest in listing crypto assets among institutions, despite lingering compliance concerns. The report was compiled in partnership with exchanges, Bitstamp, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The study surveyed 86 “senior executives from the buy-side, sell-side, and proprietary trading groups specialized in traditional derivatives trading, clearing and execution.” The report also supplemented its findings by surveying trading firms which specialize in cryptocurrencies. 26% of trading firms have adopted crypto assets in some form The report found that 17% of traditional trading firms have already adopted crypto assets — …