Crypto Derivatives Volume Just Hit a New Record High

The crypto derivatives monthly volume increased by one third in May to hit a new all-time high of $602 billion, according to United Kingdom-based data aggregator CryptoCompare.

The new record is just a shade past the previous one of $600 billion, registered in March. However, derivatives are becoming ever more popular and now account for 32% of the crypto market — up from 27% in April. In percentage terms, the monthly volume increase in May for derivatives was six times larger than the increase in spot volumes, which was up 5% to $1.27 trillion.

Huobi, OKEx and Binance accounted for about 80% of May’s derivatives volume combined. In percentage terms, CME saw the largest monthly increase of 59%, though its $7.2 billion in volume was dwarfed by market leader Huobi — posting a 29% monthly gain in volume with $176 billion.

Considering the options

Institutional options volumes on the regulated platform CME also hit record levels in May — increasing by a massive 16 times from April’s figures to a new monthly high of 5,996 contracts traded. The platform also broke a new daily record on May 28, with CME trading 1,418 Bitcoin options contracts. Derebit’s options volume more than doubled in May to $3.06 billion.

There can be only one

CryptoCompare’s report highlighted some noteworthy shifts in the world of stablecoins, with USDC and PAX both seeing massive declines in volume against BTC — with USDC down 78% this month while PAX lost 97%. USDT represents the overwhelming majority of stablecoin to BTC trading with 98%.

The biggest day of the month, as one might expect, was the eve of the Bitcoin Halving, on May 10, which saw a huge spike in spot trading volumes to $64.7 billion. To put that into context, it’s just under the top trading day in April ($66.2 billion) and considerably less than Black Thursday in March ($75.9 billion).

Binance overtakes Huobi, OKEx as biggest derivatives exchange   Oct. 9, 2020
Spot Markets Target Top-Tier Exchanges While Derivatives Gain Market Share   Aug. 17, 2020
Both Crypto Derivatives and Spot Markets Post Record Volume in March   April 5, 2020
Deutsche Borse’s platform Xetra to list its first Ether ETPs   March 8, 2021
Bitcoin futures open interest hits new ATH as traders flock to derivatives   March 12, 2021