• The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has become the largest bitcoin futures exchange by open interest.

  • CME has $3.99 billion in open positions across 108,900 bitcoin contracts.

  • Binance trails CME with $3.77 billion in open interest, down 12.76% in the last 24 hours.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has surpassed crypto exchange Binance as the largest bitcoin futures exchange by open interest. According to data from Coinglass, CME now has $3.99 billion in open positions across 108,900 bitcoin contracts. This represents 24.3% of the total bitcoin futures market.

CME BTC futures contract positions increased by 4.17% in the past 24 hours to 111,100 BTC, with a position value of $4.08 billion, accounting for 24.77% of the entire network. For the first time in history, it has surpassed Binance (103,800 BTC) and has become the exchange with…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) November 10, 2023

Binance trails CME with $3.77 billion in open interest, down 12.76% in the last 24 hours. Its 102,790 bitcoin contracts now make up 22.97% of the total market. CME’s rise to become the top bitcoin futures exchange by open interest highlights growing demand from institutional investors to gain exposure to bitcoin through regulated derivatives products.

Institutions have been accumulating bitcoin in bulk. A prime example is MicroStrategy, which continues to accumulate bitcoin even as prices trade significantly above its average purchase price. According to on-chain data analytics firm Lookonchain, the enterprise software company spent another $5.3 million in October to acquire 155 bitcoins at an average price of $34,194.

MicroStrategy spent another $5.3M to buy 155 $BTC at $34,194 in October.#MicroStrategy currently holds 158,400 $BTC, and the average buying price is $29,587.At current prices, the profit has exceeded $1.1B!https://t.co/9LCBRTBw5m

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) November 10, 2023

The company’s October purchase is already up by 7.1%, with an unrealized profit of $377,768. MicroStrategy now holds a total of 158,400 bitcoins acquired at an average cost of $29,587 per coin. With bitcoin currently trading around $36,000, MicroStrategy is sitting on paper profits of over $1.08 billion on its bitcoin investment. According to Saylor Tracker, MicroStrategy’s BTC stash stands at a 22.91% unrealized profit at press time.

This surge in open interest comes at a time when bitcoin briefly touched $37,926 before dropping to $36,579 by press time. BTC is down by 0.5% in the last 24 hours.

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