Surging Bitcoin futures volume highlights increasing institutional interest

On Oct. 12 Bitcoin price pushed above $11,700 on Binance and data shows trading at derivatives exchanges also began to spike.

According to data from Skew, CME Bitcoin futures open interest has started to recover.

The term open interest refers to the total amount of long and short contracts open at a given time and it is typically used to gauge trading activity in the futures market.

What's behind the surge?In the past two months, three multi-billion dollar conglomerates publicly announced significantly sized investments in Bitcoin.

On Oct. 13, as Cointelegraph reported, Stone Ridge, a $10 billion asset manager, purchased 10,000 BTC. The company is now the third major corporation in the U.S. to make a major Bitcoin investment in the past two months.

Following the high profile investments into Bitcoin from MicroStrategy, Square, and Stone Ridge, institutional demand for Bitcoin might be growing naturally.

Bitcoin futures data from Digital Assets Data also show a noticeable uptick in volume over the past 2 weeks.

Since the futures market resets after every expiration, open interest drops with it in tandem.

The overall increase in volume across various institutional platforms indicates that institutional demand is likely rising.

Atop the high institutional and whale activity, overall spot market volume has been increasing simultaneously.