BitMEX traders are betting more than a $1 billion on bitcoin

Bitcoin traders are gradually increasing their exposure to Bitcoin on futures trading platform BitMEX. 

BitMEX's main trading pair—XBT (which represents Bitcoin) against USD—has a current open-interest of $1.06 billion. It has risen by over $250 million in the last 10 days, soaring past the $1 billion mark. Open interest is the total number of "open" trading positions on a particular pair.

The trading pair is also approaching its all-time high of $1.22 billion—set just a few months ago on July 10. BitMEX has the lion's share of bitcoin futures trading, and as such is seen as a bellwether for the market's overall health. It also makes up 90% of BitMEX's daily trading volume.

The increase in open-interest on BitMEX over the last few months shows that traders are willing to risk more of their money on the future outcome of Bitcoin's price. But, there is no clear consensus on which way they think the price will move.

Over the last 24 hours, based on the volume of both "buy" and "sell" orders on this market, the market is split 52% to 48%, slightly in favor of the market going up. So, traders are pretty uncertain.

What's more certain is Binance–the largest exchange by volume–is also entering the futures trading game. Although in its haste, it seemed to have plagiarised BitMEX's explanatory documents. Can it copy BitMEX's success as well?