Crypto derivatives’ daily trading volumes reach record highs

Crypto derivatives, including futures and options, are seeing record-high trading volumes on exchanges Deribit and Coinbase.
Crypto derivatives, including futures and options, are seeing record-high trading volumes on exchanges Deribit and Coinbase.

Daily trading volumes for options and futures crypto derivatives have surged in the past week, hitting record highs on a number of exchanges. 

Crypto derivatives exchange Deribit said in a Feb. 29 X post that its 24-hour trading volume hit an all-time high of $12.4 billion on the day.

It added open interest (OI) — the number of derivatives contracts that have yet to be closed or settled on the platform — had passed $29 billion, another all-time high. Deribit’s client assets reached $4 billion, it said.

Deribit trading volume post. Source Deribit/X

On March 1, Coinbase Institutional said its United States-regulated futures exchange had its second-best-ever day of $380 million notional volume traded in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) contracts across a record 850 unique end-users on Feb. 29.

The Greeks Live professional options trader’s tooling platform also reported a historic 24-hour high options trading volume of $620 million.

On March 1, Greeks Live noted that U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were driving the spot bull market, which saw record volumes this week as Bitcoin’s price hit as high as $64,000.

However, options volume positions are rising modestly, it said. It added that “solid inflows are making for a very healthy market structure.”

Related: Bitcoin rallies to 2-year high, but derivatives traders not betting on further gains

Every week on Friday is crypto options expiry day, and Deribit reported there are around 32,000 BTC options with a notional value of $1.9 billion set to expire on March 1.

In addition, around 235,000 ETH options contracts are also expiring with a notional value of $793 million.

Bitcoin options OI by strike price. Source: Deribit

Spot Bitcoin ETFs also had a solid week, with several recording trading volume days of over $2 billion.

However, a near $600 million outflow from Grayscale’s ETF on Feb. 29 saw the net inflow for all 10 ETFs drop to $93.8 million — the lowest level since Feb. 6, according to preliminary data from Farside Investors.

Net inflows to BlackRock’s Bitcoin fund on Feb. 29 hit $604 million, exceeding Grayscale’s net outflows and netting more inflows for the day than all the other ETFs combined.

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