Bakkt stands as a regulated crypto custodian and trading platform, owned by the Intercontinental Exchange, or IC. Today, Bakkt gave out a report regarding its physically-settled Bitcoin (BTC) futures contracts and the daily trading volumes thereof.
Going 36% Higher From Last Daily Volume Record
On the 16th of September, 2020, Bakkt revealed that in a single day, the platform managed to trade over $200 million in BTC contracts. This blasts past the previous record high, doing so by a factor of 36%
Skew, a crypto market data aggregator, made it clear that this record figure stands at approximately double that of the average daily volumes that Bakkt had posted throughout September so far.
Big Plans Falling (Relatively) Short
In the past, Bakkt was touted as a catalyst for a bull market led by the institutional players of the world but had failed to make as much an impact as originally anticipated with its Bitcoin derivatives. In January of this year, the exchange had even seen sustained periods of complete inactivity. However, these volumes have recently started to increase by a steady pace, which suggests that institutional players are starting to warm up to the idea of playing around with Bitcoin futures.
“Physically Settled” Bitcoin contracts, the type Bakkt provides, is when the futures contract is, as the name suggests, settled with the asset itself instead of cash. However, many analysts have pointed out that the majority of contracts within Bakkt have only rolled over, with only a minor portion of tradings opting to receive Bitcoin proper when their contracts expired.
Gaining Ground
Even with the new momentum, Bakkt has gained, the exchange’s all-time high still pales in comparison to the trade activity of the heavyweight exchanges. The BTC-USDT perpetual contract for Binance, for example, had managed to drive $2.65 billion in trade. The other 74 futures pairings within the exchange managed to push $5.96 billion as a collective, as well.
The 103 futures pairings that the Huobi exchange offers managed to generate an impressive $5.48 billion in daily trade volume. This includes a similar BTC-USD perpetual contract, which alone stood for $1.28 billion. The BTC-USD perpetual contract on OKEx saw a trading volume of $516 million today, with the exchange itself gaining a total trade volume of $2.72 billion in total from 488 futures pairings.
It should be noted, however, that Bakkt did manage to beat Deribit today. The BTC-USD contracts of Deribit had accrued a total daily trading volume of $168 million, showing that Bakkt made some progress.
