A recent report from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has shown a marked increase in the trading volume of Bitcoin futures. This is evidence of growing interest in the field of Bitcoin futures and comes following an earlier report which painted Bitcoin futures as the reason for the price decline of Bitcoin.



More specifically, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has reported that the average trading volume of Bitcoin futures has increased with a massive 93% in the second quarter of this year, compared to Q1 of 2018.



This news was disclosed in a recent tweet from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and similarity told that the rate of open interest, or the number of open contracts, had surpassed 2,400. This, in turn, represents an increase of 58% over the first quarter of this year.



Such a marked increase in both the number of open contracts and the average daily trading volume is a clear indication of growing interest when it comes to investing and trading Bitcoin futures.



Several Bitcoin futures have been launched since the Chicago Board Options Exchange launches the first one on December 10 in 2017. However, some doubts have been cast on Bitcoin futures and it is unclear what direct effects they have on the overall price of Bitcoin.



Toshi Times has previously covered a note issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on the subject of Bitcoin futures. According to that speculative piece, the introduction of Bitcoin futures could very well have caused the price of Bitcoin to decline from its high of around $20,000 last December.



Moreover, the economic letter from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco argued that the introduction of Bitcoin futures effectively allowed skeptical investors to short the Bitcoin market, which supposedly precipitated a “reversal of Bitcoin’s price dynamics”.



Nonetheless, it is still unclear whether this was, in fact, the real reason for the decline in the price of Bitcoin. Even so, these recent increases in the volume of Bitcoin futures trading dwarf those in Q1 of 2018, not to mention the relatively minor volumes during December of 2017.



These new numbers from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange showcase a growing interest in Bitcoin futures among investors, however, it is not the only recent news relating to Bitcoin futures.



Toshi Times recently reported how asset management behemoth BlackRock, which manages assets worth a massive $6.3 trillion, was exploring Bitcoin futures – providing further proof of the growing interest in Bitcoin futures.

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