Crypto Exchange BitMEX Reveals Most of Its Users Don’t Use Maximum Leverage

Cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform BitMEX claims that on average, its users don’t use the maximum 100x leverage that the platform offers. BitMEX reported on the data in a post published on its official blog on May 15.

According to the post, the company’s co-founder and CEO Arthur Hayes had the data science team of the exchange pull up historical data on the average leverage usage for the bitcoin (BTC)/United States dollar perpetual swap.

Hayes stated that the data obtained this way show that “traders are quite ‘responsible’ in that they do not on average use the maximum amount of leverage.” Data shows that the monthly weighted average effective leverage on the bitcoin perpetual swap in May 2018 is 29x on long positions and 26x on short positions.

In April 2019, the monthly weighted average effective leverage on the same contract was reportedly 22x on long positions and 30x on short positions. The post also claims that — in the previous 12 months — 80% of the long positions had a leverage lower than or equal to 54x, while 80% of the short positions didn’t use more than 47x leverage.

As Cointelegraph reported in mid-April, United States-based professional trading infrastructure firm Trading Technologies International partnered with the parent company of BitMEX to open up its products to crypto derivatives traders.

At the end of last month, sources familiar with the matter reportedly said that online trading firm E*Trade Financial Group is preparing to offer cryptocurrency trading on its platform.