Binance Futures’ Bitcoin trading volumes hit a record high

By Nawaz Sulemanji

Number one spot cryptocurrency exchange Binance has seen its futures trading business rocket as of late, with 24-hour trading volume hitting a high of $820m on 15 October. Trading volume has since settled to around $700 million—the same level that occurs on Binance’s highly successful spot trading exchange. 

Since the launch of Binance futures’ bitcoin derivatives market in September, 24-hour trading volume had mostly settled in the $250-$500 million range. However, since the futures exchange hit a recent volume low of $300 million on 13 October, daily trading volumes have more than doubled in the last 3 days to hit a high of over $800 million.

Futures trading is classified as a type of derivatives market. Unlike spot markets—where the settlement happens immediately—in futures trading, the market only needs to be settled dependent on the specific market’s settlement date. This settlement delay means that high leverage is commonplace for futures trading exchanges. 

At the moment Binance Futures offers traders up to 20x leverage, with rivals such as BitMEX offering up to 100x. Spot markets most often have no or very low leverage. The pick up in Binance futures trading could indicate that crypto-traders are increasingly interested in speculating (with high leverage) in cryptocurrency investments.

Interestingly, Binance’s other futures market, Binance JEX, is faring less well. The sister venture, which started trading five days after Binance Futures, splits its US-dollar denominated trading pairs between Bitcoin (52%), Ethereum (20%) and EOS (28%). Binance JEX also kicked off trading with around $300 million worth of 24-hour volume, but has seen a steady decline in interest, with daily volumes currently at $160 million, and seemingly trending lower. 

According to data from CoinGecko, Binance Futures currently ranks at fifth place in the overall crypto futures trading market, in terms of its daily trading volumes. Ahead of Binance is Bybit ($710 million) and the three futures heavyweights of Huobi ($1.6 billion), BitMEX ($2 billion) and finally OKEx ($2.8 billion).

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