Bakkt Bitcoin Futures Volume Hits New High As Bitcoin Reclaims $7500 Levels

23. Dec 2019 Posted by Akolkar B on News

After a poor show last week, Bitcoin has finally managed to cross $7500 levels on the chart. In the last 24 hours, the BTC price has surged by more than 5% leading the crypto market rally.

At press time, Bitcoin is trading at a price of $7562 with a market cap of $137 billion. If you look at the weekly chart for Bitcoin on WordCoinIndex, you can see that Bitcoin crashed below its major support levels of $7000 going all the way down to $6600 on December 18.

The fall can be attributed to PlusToken scammers cashing out BTC tokens in massive amounts, as per the report by cryptocurrency research firm Chainalysis. The report suggested that the scammers sole PLUS tokens to investors against Bitcoin and laters cashed-out 25000 BTC tokens in the market causing the price fall.

However, Bitcoin quickly recovered from these low surging back above $7000. After consolidating at these levels for the last three days, Bitcoin has surged once more to move $7500 levels.

The recovery in the BTC price arrived along with the Bakkt’s Bitcoin Futures volume reaching record highs. A Twitter bot dubbed Bakkt Bitcoin Volume which tracks the market activity of Bakkt’s futures reported this news.

Bakkt is a cryptocurrency platform launched by financial giant Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in August 2018. Having received the regulatory approval from derivatives regulator CFTC, Bakkt started offering its physically-settled Bitcoin Futures contracts in September 2019.

Bakkt’s Bitcoin futures contracts majorly aim at driving institutional interest in the crypto market. With the open interest for Bakkt’s Bitcoin futures reaching record-high, it is clear that it has succeeded in pulling institutional players in the market.

Citing higher institutional demand, another derivatives platform ErisX also launched its physically-settled Bitcoin Futures in the market. ErisX is confident about the performance of its futures product.

The company said: “We know that growth in open interest will take time and there are clear challenges ahead. Introducing an intermediary market is a multi-step process, not an event, and our experience with such launches has taught us to build for longevity.”

In addition to Bitcoin, the top ten altcoins have also contributed in today’s market surge with marginal recovery anywhere between 2-4%.