CME has been unseated as the leading venue for bitcoin futures open interest, with Binance now holding the top spot, data shows. According to CoinGlass, Binance currently has roughly 125,000 BTC of open interest in bitcoin futures — about $11.2 billion in notional value — versus the CME’s roughly 123,000 BTC (around $11 billion). That marks a notable shift: CME began the year with about 175,000 BTC of open interest but has seen that position steadily erode. Why it matters: open interest (OI) measures outstanding futures contracts and is a proxy for where market participants are placing larger directional and hedging bets. Binance’s OI has been steady through the year, reflecting continued retail activity and directional speculation. By contrast, the drop in CME OI points to cooling institutional participation. A key reason for the decline at CME is the shrinking profitability of the basis trade — where traders buy spot bitcoin and sell futures to capture the price premium between the two markets. When that premium (the annualized basis rate) is large, the trade is attractive to institutional arbitrageurs; when it compresses, those trades become less appealing. Velo data shows the annualized basis rate has fallen to roughly 5% today, down from around 15% when CME OI previously hit a record near 200,000 BTC during last year’s rally toward $100,000. As spot and futures prices converge, arbitrage opportunities have diminished. CME had been the largest exchange for bitcoin futures open interest since November 2023, buoyed by institutional positioning ahead of the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs in January 2024. For now, that institutional advantage appears to have faded, with Binance — the venue more associated with retail directional bets — reclaiming the lead. The shift underscores a broader market dynamic: institutional flows that boosted CME earlier in the cycle have moderated, while retail-driven futures activity on centralized crypto exchanges remains resilient. Observers will watch whether this is a temporary rotation or a longer-term realignment of where bitcoin futures liquidity concentrates. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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