2018 Was Bittersweet For Bitcoin: Focus On JPMorgan's View Of BTC Futures On CBOE, CME

• Bitcoin has not been able to come out of the bear trend the entire year.
• Bitcoin futures have been a great addition to the crypt market since their introduction by CME in 2017.

​​​​​​This year has been the year of correction in in the cryptocurrency industry. It is true to say that it has been both bitter and sweet. We saw Bitcoin spiral losing ground massively from its all-time high traded in December 2017. In spite of the declines, there has been tremendous development in terms of technology and new products. The market has battled to come out of the speculation and focus on core of the industry; development and mass adoption.

The unfortunate thing is that Bitcoin has not been able to come out of the bear trend the entire year. Yes, there have been wins where the asset recovered significantly. However, the asset has experienced frequent recoveries followed by devastating waterfall drops. In the last two months, for example, Bitcoin broke the support at $6,000. This ignited the declines to the extent that BTC refreshed the yearly lows around $3,200. A correction from the annual lows was rejected at $4,200 last week and Bitcoin is changing hands at $3,740 at press time.

Bitcoin futures of CBOE and CME

Bitcoin futures have been a great addition to the cryptocurrency market since their introduction by CME in 2017. The same assets are also available on CBOE Futures Exchange, LLC (CFE). Bitcoin futures have offered traders opportunities discover prices promptly, massive liquidity, high level transparency as well centralized clearance. On CBOE bitcoin futures use the symbol “XBT” and offer a more centralized platform for exchanging and viewing BTC prices.

A recent overview of Bitcoin futures by JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM indicate that there has a declining interest in the assets especially for the financial institutions. For instance, the activities of Bitcoin futures on CME have dropped to $65 million in the current week (lowest range in 2018). In addition to that:

“More importantly, the futures volumes as a proportion of trading volumes on bitcoin exchanges has declined to below 1%, the lowest level since the beginning of the year and well below the 10% high seen in the summer.”

The participation of institutional clients is reported to be fading as well. However, this has been linked largely to the falling price in 2018.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart