On Wednesday, Bakkt’s Bitcoin futures (BTC) saw a massive volume boost as the cryptocurrency market tumbled by 10% within a few hours’ time. In fact, the upstart’s market saw 640 contracts traded, 653% the volume of the day prior and at least double of the previous traded contract all-time high.
Bitcoin futures @bakkt just smashed their all time highest volumes!!
Not that $4.8 million is a lot of money on Wall Street but it's good to see these contracts gaining traction on a volatile trading day. https://t.co/4riXgukOeQ
— Mati (@MatiGreenspan) October 24, 2019
While it’s too soon to call Bakkt’s rising volume a bullish trend, the exchange set a new volume all-time high on Friday — in less than half the time it took to set the previous record.
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Bitcoin Pumps, Institutions React (Or is it the Other Way ‘Round?)
For those who have living under a rock, the bearish cryptocurrency trend reversed on Friday morning, with the cryptocurrency bottoming at $7,400 to surge to $7,700. Then, about an hour or two ago, BTC shot up by $800 in a ten-minute time frame, liquidating $150 million worth of short positions in the process. In the past 12 hours, Bitcoin is up 14%.
Institutions have picked up on this. According to Bakkt Volume Bot, a Twitter account dedicated to following trends in the exchange’s Bitcoin futures market, the contract has seen 661 BTC ($5.5 million) worth of volume thus far, even though the trading day is 38% through. If this trend continues, Bakkt’s Bitcoin futures will have seen 1,740 BTC worth of volume during Friday’s trading session.
https://twitter.com/BakktBot/status/1187761280528142336
The volume increase might not only be related to the price increase. Earlier Friday, China’s President, Xi Jinping, endorsed blockchain technologies in a speech, shocking the world. Many on Twitter have claimed that this news likely lead investors to become bullish on the cryptocurrency markets, despite China still vehemently detesting Bitcoin.
Related Reading: Will Bitcoin Death Cross Lead to Another Year-long Bear Market?
Institutions Getting Bullish?
The increase in volume on Bakkt seems to be indicative of a growing trend in the crypto market: institutions have begun to flip bullish on Bitcoin after the long-drawn collapse to $7,400.
As reported by NewsBTC previously, industry analytics provider Skew recently observed that long positions held by institutional accounts — pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, mutual funds & portfolio/investment managers with institutional clients — have begun to rise again in October after nearly falling to zero BTC. Right now, this subset’s long holdings for the CME’s Bitcoin futures sit at just over 1,100 BTC.
Long positions held by institutional accounts at the CME have been rising again in October.
For reference, institutions include pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, mutual funds & portfolio/investment managers whose clients are predominantly institutional. pic.twitter.com/96N2XZwo9e
— skew (@skewdotcom) October 20, 2019
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