Share this article
CME Bitcoin Options Market Grew 10x in the Past Month
CME Group’s bitcoin options market grew tenfold within a month and recorded six consecutive all-time highs for open interest so far this month.
By Zack Voell
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 8:51 a.m. Published Jun 15, 2020, 6:34 p.m.
Over a recent 30-day period, the total open interest for CME bitcoin options increased more than tenfold, from $35 million on May 11 to $373 million on June 10. Moreover, open interest made a new all-time high on six consecutive days from June 5-10.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Significant growth in CME futures points to rapidly growing interest by institutional investors in trading regulated bitcoin derivatives products. Despite this growth, however, CME Group “has no plans to introduce additional cryptocurrency products,” a spokesperson told CoinDesk. Thus for now, CME Group’s cryptocurrency products will only involve bitcoin.
CME, which launched its bitcoin options product only at the beginning of 2020, now represents over 20% of the global bitcoin options market measured by open interest, or the total number of outstanding derivative contracts. It’s now the second-largest bitcoin options market in the world behind Panama-based Deribit, according to Skew.
See also: Crypto Derivatives Exchange OKEx Launches Options on Ether
Growth in CME’s bitcoin options market is “a strong signal that regulated institutions are exposing their books to bitcoin,” said Matt Kaye, managing partner at Los Angeles-based Blockhead Capital. “CME has a higher cost of capital and is closed on weekends, so anyone trading there is likely making those sacrifices because they have to.”
Much of CME’s growth appears to have come at the expense of Deribit. Market shares claimed by competing bitcoin derivatives markets LedgerX, Bakkt and OKEx have remained largely unchanged since January.
Options aren’t the only bitcoin derivatives market where CME is seeing gains. In May, CME’s bitcoin futures demonstrated similarly remarkable growth, outpacing nearly every other bitcoin derivatives platform on a real and percentage growth basis. CME bitcoin futures open interest grew 29% over the last 30 days as institutional investors continue to enter the bitcoin derivatives market.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
IMF Flags Stablecoins as Source of Risk to Emerging Markets, Experts Say We Aren't There Yet
The IMF warns that USD-pegged stablecoins could undermine local currencies in emerging markets by facilitating currency substitution and capital outflows.
What to know:
- The IMF warns that USD-pegged stablecoins could undermine local currencies in emerging markets by facilitating currency substitution and capital outflows.
- Despite concerns, experts argue that the stablecoin market is still too small to have a significant macroeconomic impact.
- Stablecoins are primarily used for crypto trading, and their market size remains small compared to global currency flows.
Top Stories
