Open Interest in Bakkt’s Bitcoin Futures Hits Record Highs of $7.02 Million

In what has been seen by many in the crypto space as a win, the open interest of the Bitcoin futures platform Bakkt has reached new all-time highs. Sources indicate that this occurred yesterday and that this shows fresh inflows from new entrants into the Bitcoin marketplace. Twitter’s BakktBot has further put the open interest at $7.02 million which shows strong trading activity on the Intercontinental Exchange-managed platform and also greater liquidity within the Bitcoin futures market in general.

Monday’s Bakkt Bitcoin Monthly Futures:

📈 Traded contracts: 2898 ($19.90 million, +87%)
🚀 All time high: 5671 (11/27/2019)
💰 Open interest: $7.02 million (+11%)

Knowing bots, we recommend this smart trading bot: https://t.co/W8ClGYnuNn pic.twitter.com/wYVPIVnPbi

— Bakkt Volume Bot (@BakktBot) December 17, 2019

As CoinSpeaker has already reported, while this was occurring, Bitcoin prices have been falling below the psychological support levels of $7,000 which is in part due to the end-of-year exit of certain funds that either consolidated in 2019 or shut down completely. This, however, hasn’t slowed many others within the crypto space. For instance, Tom Jessop who is the President of Fidelity Digital Assets told sources that many of the funds closely resembled internet startups that existed during the dotcom bubble. He said:

“Those folks were potential customers, but I also say in many cases – whether it was the retail push in late 2017 or some of these nascent funds forming and then closing in the span of 18 months – it’s just your classic, early-stage will they make it or not,”

This of course further goes to show that the current volatility of Bitcoin prices is caused by a lot of adjustments going on within the crypto space. Jessop also noted that the clientele for which cryptocurrency assets are managed have become more diversified indicating a widespread interest that may lead to further adoption.

Already, with the introduction of new platforms such as Bakkt which are still centralized but enhance liquidity, man would have thought that the Bitcoin space would have been stimulated into higher prices and a bull run that would take prices beyond the $20,000 all-time-high. That, however, hasn’t occurred yet. This, of course, points to the fact that decentralized systems might lead the way. Examples of such decentralized exchange systems include the Binance Chain which is the trading blockchain of Binance, Chainlink that uses oracles to link blockchains, Bytom’s blockchain that uses its unique order-matching platform (MOV trading logic) for trading along with different blockchains and of course the different sidechains which were popular before the arrival of Ethereum.

Bitcoin prices are driven by so many different forces and factors that it would be difficult for a single overwhelming factor to determine how best prices would move. This again indicates the coming-of-age for Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency and cryptocurrencies themselves as an asset class. Cryptocurrency prices coming out of crypto winter indicate that the markets aren’t going to be the same again but that cryptocurrencies are here to stay. Digital assets are going to be the foundational assets of the future and this is just the beginning of many things to come as far as decentralized finance (Defi) is concerned.