Open Interest on Bakkt Futures Contracts Reaches New All-Time High 

Bakkt, a top crypto institutional investment firm, has made a lot of model progress with providing financial products, as evidenced by its physically-delivered Bitcoin contracts. The products admittedly had a bit of a slow start after being launched in September, but starts have stabilized since then, and they’ve been moving from one record to another.

Open Interest to the Moon 

The latest in milestones for the contracts is a new all-time high volume in terms of open interest, which was reported by Skew Markets via Twitter on December 16. Despite the fact that Bitcoin itself is in the midst of yet another slump, Skew Markers reported that open interest in the contracts on the day stood at $7,000. 

New all time high in the Open Interest for Bakkt's BTC Futures. pic.twitter.com/dDXZVxmVSU

— skew (@skewdotcom) December 17, 2019

The milestone is coming just weeks after the contracts first clocked $6.5 million in open interest, and it shows a continued increase in the level of activity that the assets are having.

Trading volumes, on the other hand, stood at $10 million at the time. The figures for this metric has to bend rather stable since the month began, as it would seem that the slump in the market is scaring a lot of investors from getting into the asset. Regardless, a new all-time high in terms of open interest is a great milestone to celebrate nonetheless.

2019, the Year of Bakkt

The record caps off an eventful year for Bakkt. The company has had its sights set on launching these futures contracts since the beginning of 2018, and was able to get that done three months ago after rounds of delays and setbacks from financial regulators in the country. 

Bolstered by the considerable level of success that the futures contracts have had, Bakkt expanded its product offering this month, as it announced on December 9 that it had launched two new products- the Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) Monthly Options and the Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) Cash-Settled Futures.

As the platform explains, the monthly options product is the first Bitcoin futures contract to be regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CTFC). The announcement explained that price discovery occurs within a regulated market, and the futures themselves are entirely shielded from unregulated spot markets. 

However, the cash-settled futures product is a new contract that will first be made available on the ICE Futures Singapore, an exchange owned by Bally’s parent company, the Intercontinental Exchange, and operates out of the city-state. The contract is based on the settlement price pegged to the benchmark monthly futures contract, and as the blog post reads, it provides an “alternative for participants who are unable to trade our physically delivered contract.”

The company’s chief executive Kelly Loeffler has also been appointed to the United States Senate. Loeffler, who is a proud pro-Trump Republican, is expected to replace Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), who plans to retire from public office at the end of the year.