2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report

TokenInsight
22 min readNov 10, 2020

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2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight

Executive Summary

1. $2.7trillion In the third quarter of 2020, TokenInsight obtained data from 42 exchanges in the derivatives industry. The transaction volume of the digital asset derivatives market reported $2.7 trillion, an increase of 25.1% from the previous quarter, and a year-on-year increase of 159.4% from the third quarter of 2019.

2. Elastic The trading volume of derivatives continues to rise, and the year-to-date growth rate is 4.35 times that of the spot market year-to-date, with higher flexibility. At the same time, the exchanges continue to enrich products and functions.

3. Risk In September, the trading volume and the market open interest fell together. The withdrawal of funds may be a precursor to subsequent market changes. Investors should control their risks.

4. 30% In the third quarter of 2020, the market-wide open interest increased by 30%, 81% lower than the second quarter (111%). Market open interest and trading volume increase together.

5. 2.1X The derivatives/spot trading volume ratio of comprehensive exchanges dropped to 2.1from 4.4 in the previous quarter. The expansion of the spot business and the competition in the derivatives industry led to a decline in the proportion of derivatives transactions in this quarter.

6. NewPlayer New players such as Huobi Futures, Bit.com and Bitwell entered the Options market, enriching the product range.

7. Compliance This quarter, the proportion of transactions on compliant exchanges increased to 1.39%, and the transaction volume of compliant derivatives increased by 73.3%.

8. Perpetual Derivatives exchanges still count on perpetual contracts as their main business, and the growth of trading volume on top derivatives exchanges is not as good as the market average. Industry competition has led to a decrease in the concentration of trading volume distribution.

9. TBD The popularity of derivatives trading on decentralized exchanges gradually declined in August and September, and its trading volume was affected by the overall derivatives market. The trading volume of dYdX contract products accounted for 6% of its total trading volume when it was launched, and the actual market demand for decentralized exchange contract products in the short term needs to be determined.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight

Overview

The derivatives market in 2020Q3 is slightly deserted due to the ‘Craze’ of DeFi, but in fact, the trading volume of derivatives is still growing. The trading volume in Q3 increased by 25% compared with the previous quarter. In addition to futures contracts, the Options market also shined in the third quarter. New exchanges focusing on Options trading such as bit.com, bitwell, and DEX have also been launched.

In terms of futures contracts, we have seen two phenomena: First, the underlying trading choice of the top exchanges have become more complete, basically covering the USDT-margined and Coin-margined(Inverse) contracts of mainstream assets. The differentiation of competition is gradually decreasing. We can foresee that in Q4 and the longer-term future, direct competition due to the reduction of product differentiation will be more intense; the second phenomenon is that for the hotter areas (especially DeFi projects ), its futures contract transactions will be launched in a relatively short period, and the categories and asset classes are becoming more complete.

In terms of DEX, which is different from spot trading, can bring potentially huge wealth effects. Derivatives DEX is relatively scarce at this point. There may be a huge gap between the underlying assets of spot DEX and centralized exchanges. Because a new token project can be listed on DEX ahead of the centralized exchange. However, the trading assets of derivatives are not so diversified, and there is still no better solution for the liquidity of derivatives decentralized exchanges.

Another point worth paying attention to is compliance. The punishment of BitMEX and the increase in the trading volume of fully compliant derivatives exchanges have confirmed that traditional financial capital and institutional investors are increasingly interested in the digital asset market. The key factor for the start of BTC’s future price growth.

For each exchange, due to its reasons, the market competition pattern is also being broken. Due to compliance issues, BitMEX has suffered serious losses of assets and users, and the market position of coin-margined perpetual contracts has been constantly threatened, and other exchanges have benefited from this. The delivery contract market where OKEx has been in the first echelon for a long time is also being seized by exchanges that later launch delivery contracts. Binance grew rapidly in Q3, and it surpassed Huobi in September; although it is still inferior to Huobi in Q3 overall trading volume, the market share and grabbing of the top exchanges deserve more attention.

Of course, we also brought TokenInsight’s third-quarter update. Comprehensively liquidity ranking of exchanges through the exchanges’ market data, open interest, trading volume, web traffic, the distribution pattern of those data, and API trading support.

Now you can go on to the official website of TokenInsight to view real-time secondary market data of different exchanges, and different cryptocurrencies anytime and anywhere. For more information on the derivatives market in the third quarter, Please Enjoy the Report.

1. Industry Update

July

① Huobi Perpetual Contract is connected to Huobi Cloud;

② Matrixport launched its own derivatives exchange bit.com;

③ Digital asset exchange FTX launched AMPL futures and spot trading;

④ BitZ launched the PAXG contract to anchor the London bullion market, with a maximum leverage of 400x;

⑤ ErisX, a digital asset derivatives exchange, joined the Silvergate trading network;

⑥ KuCoin has added LUNA and VET asset leverage trading services, supporting 10x leverage;

⑦ The $1.2 billion bitcoin futures and Options contract expires on July 31;

⑧ The UK financial regulator has agreed to Kraken’s subsidiary, Crypto Facility, to operate its derivatives platform;

Aug

① Bingbon, the derivatives exchange, launched DOTUSDT standard contract trading;

② The listing on the INX Exchange has completed the regulatory requirements for raising US$7.5 million in legal tender, and has begun to accept digital assets;

③ Huobi Global Station established a “Global Observation Area” and launched the first batch of projects YFII and YFI;

④ Coinbase announced that Marc Andreessen, a partner of the American venture capital firm a16z, and Gokul Rajaram, an executive of Door Dash, have joined the Coinbase board of directors;

⑤ Two managers of the South Korean exchange Komid were sentenced to imprisonment on suspicion of fraud and embezzlement of 25 million US dollars;

⑥ South Korea’s third largest digital asset exchange, Coinbit, was seized and investigated by South Korean police for allegedly inflating trading volume and manipulating market prices;

⑦ Coincheck, a digital asset exchange under the Monex Group, announced the launch of Japan’s first IEO in cooperation with Hashpalette;

⑧ BitZ has launched three types of perpetual contracts: ATOM, LINK and DOT;

⑨ Coinbase released the ERC-20 standard token listing security review guide;

Sept

① Huobi launched an option contract, the industry’s first USDT standard forward option contract;

② Huobi USDT/USD perpetual contract is officially launched, supporting multiples of 1x-1000x;

③ The total transaction volume of bitcoin Options on bit.com exceeds USD 360 million, second only to Deribit and CME;

④ Bitfinex launched traditional stock index derivative contracts settled by USDT, providing 100 times leverage;

⑤ BitZ has launched four DeFi currency contracts: SUN, SUSHI, YFI and UNI;

⑥ Binance launched USDT-priced DeFi composite index trading contract.

2. Industry Landscape

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight

3. Trading

3.1 Market Trading Volume

“ The derivatives market achieved a breakthrough this quarter, with total trading volume increasing to $2.7 trillion, and for the first time a single-day trading volume that exceeded the spot market

In this quarter, TokenInsight obtained data from 42 exchanges in the cryptocurrency derivatives market and carried out detailed research using the classification of derivatives exchanges in the previous quarter.

In the third quarter of 2020, the trading volume of the cryptocurrency derivatives market reported $2.7 trillion, an increase of 25.1% from the previous quarter, and a year-on-year increase of 159.4% from the third quarter of 2019.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Cryptocurrency derivatives trading volume,Source: TokenInsight

During the same period, the total transaction volume of digital assets in the spot market is shown on the left. This quarter, the total spot market trading volume decreased by about 26.5% from the previous quarter and fell by 12.2% from the third quarter of 2019. Different from the downward trend in the spot trading market this year, the trading volume of derivatives continues to rise, and the year-to-date growth rate is 4.35 times that of the spot trading volume over the same period last year.

The total trading volume of cryptocurrency derivatives in this quarter was approximately 40.32% of the total volume (Spot & Derivatives), an increase of 12.92% compared with the previous quarter, accounting for 67.55% of the total market spot transaction volume. Consistent with the expectations in the TokenInsight second-quarter report, the third quarter derivatives trading volume ushered in a breakthrough of over $2 trillion.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Spot trading volume & 20Q3 Comparison of Spot and Derivative Volume,Source: TokenInsight

“ The derivatives market fluctuated significantly this quarter, and the depressed market sentiment in June was fully ignited at the end of July

The average daily trading volume of the derivatives market in this quarter was $29.35B. The highest single-day volume occurred on July 28 and reported $70.8B, which was $10.5B higher than the peak of the previous quarter ($60.3B); while the lowest single-day transaction occurred in On July 19, it was reported at $9.3B, which was lower than the single-day low of the previous quarter ($11.7B).

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 Derivatives and spot daily trading volume,Source: TokenInsight

In this quarter, the standard deviation of the daily trading volume of derivatives in the whole market was 13, which was higher than Q2(7.92) and Q1(9.86). This shows that the volatility of the daily trading volume in Q3 has increased significantly. After ending the downturn in June, the depressed market sentiment led to a retaliatory rebound in derivatives at the end of July. The single-day volume even surpassed the spot trading twice on July 28 and August 2, successfully creating history.

At the same time, the correlation coefficient between the derivatives and the spot trading volume in this quarter is 0.6, which is similar to the previous quarter, showing a strong correlation between those.

However, it is worth noting that, similar to the spot market, the noise in the derivatives market has been severe for a long time. In the survey conducted by TokenInsight this quarter, there are many exchanges with abnormal trading volume and open interest, and the authenticity of the overall market data needs to be improved. Therefore, the data disclosed in this derivatives report should be used more as indicators for trend analysis. For a single exchange, the accuracy of transaction data should be questioned.

3.2 Open Interest

“ Open interest in this quarter maintains the upward trend of the previous quarter

In the third quarter of 2020, open interest rose from $5.55B at the beginning to $7.22B at the end, an increase of 30%. While it was 81% lower than the increase in the previous quarter (111%). In the last quarter, under the low market volatility, investors generally chose a longer holding period and waited for opportunities brought by price fluctuations. In this quarter, the market’s open interest and trading volume increased together, showing the frequent pass by of short-term funds and the continuous accumulation of long and short energy. Investors’ willingness to trade increased this quarter, but they still have doubts about the direction of market outlook price fluctuations, leading to an escalation of the confrontation between long and short funds.In the third quarter of 2020, open interest rose from $5.55B at the beginning to $7.22B at the end, an increase of 30%. While it was 81% lower than the increase in the previous quarter (111%). In the last quarter, under the low market volatility, investors generally chose a longer holding period and waited for opportunities brought by price fluctuations. In this quarter, the market’s open interest and trading volume increased together, showing the frequent pass by of short-term funds and the continuous accumulation of long and short energy. Investors’ willingness to trade increased this quarter, but they still have doubts about the direction of market outlook price fluctuations, leading to an escalation of the confrontation between long and short funds.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 Comparison of market-wide open interest and TI Index,Source: TokenInsight

This quarter, the market open interest and TI Index showed the same trend. The rise in the price of Bitcoin at the end of July drove the market, resulting in a 63.5% increase in trading volume in August compared to July. After the shock in August, the price of Bitcoin fell in September, but still maintained a certain degree of volatility, resulting in a slight drop (-12%) in trading volume in September compared with August.

The increase in price volatility this quarter has brought profit to short-term investors. Compared with spot trading, derivatives have higher flexibility and can amplify market fluctuation. Once the market fluctuates, the volume of derivatives will change more than spot trading. At the same time, as the trading volume fell in September, the market open interest fell. The withdrawal of funds may be a precursor to subsequent market changes. Investors should remain vigilant and control risks.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 month-wide market derivatives trading volume & 20Q3 monthly changes in open interest,Source: TokenInsight

4. Exchange Analysis

4.1 Exchanges Comparison

“ The top three total trading volume exchanges in the derivatives’ volume fell to 48%. Competition has led to a decrease in the concentration of trading volume distribution

The total transactions volume of various derivatives exchanges is shown in the figure below. Among them, the trading volume of the top three exchanges accounted for 48%, and the trading volume of the top six exchanges accounted for 61%, down 13% and 22% respectively from the second quarter of 2020.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 The trading volume of various derivatives exchanges (excluding exchanges with abnormal trading volume) and market concentration,Source: TokenInsightNote: BitZ, Hopex, Bitforex have not fully opened API trading

During the same period, the top three spot exchanges’ transaction volume accounted for approximately 16%, which was one-third of that of the derivatives exchanges. Compared with the previous quarter (one-eighth), this proportion was significantly higher. The main reason is the intensified competition in the spot market this quarter. The top trading platforms with good fundamentals have stronger expansion capabilities in a volatile market environment. Meanwhile, derivatives’ growth potentials attracted exchanges to be here. The progress and diversification of products and services caused the increase in the diversification degree of transaction volume.

The following figure shows the top eight exchanges’ trading volume compared with the total market trading volume:

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Market share comparison of the top eight derivatives exchanges in 20Q3 & Q2,Source: TokenInsight

Among the eight, Binance’s share in this quarter achieved better growth compared to the previous quarter, BitMEX has experienced a decline, and the share of other exchanges is basically the same as the previous quarter. Meanwhile, six exchanges’ volume, including Huobi Futures, Binance, OKEx, BitMEX, Bybit, and BitZ, has exceeded $100B this quarter.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Comparison of trading volume of the top six volume derivatives exchanges in 20Q3,Source: TokenInsight[1]BitZ has not fully opened API trading

4.2 “The 100B Club”

The “100B Club” welcomed a new member this quarter, BitZ. The quarterly change rate in the trading volume of the top exchanges has changed significantly this year. In addition to Binance maintaining a relatively strong growth momentum in the second and third quarters, Huobi and OKEx reversed the negative growth of the previous quarter, with volume growth of 20.35% and 16.77% respectively, but still slightly lower than the average industry growth (25.1%) this quarter.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Quarterly change rate of trading volume of “100 Billion Club” Derivatives Exchange,Source: TokenInsight

The expansion of Binance derivatives this year squeezed part of the OKEx’s and BitMEX’s market share. However, competition among the top exchanges eased slightly this quarter, with Huobi Futures, OKEx and Bybit all maintaining the same share as last quarter. Besides, BitZ launched multiple contract products this quarter, covering various DeFi such as SUN, SUSHI, YFI, etc., with a transaction volume of more than $100B.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Market share changes of the “100 Billion Club” derivatives in Q2 & Q3,Source: TokenInsight

4.3 Exchange Classification

According to the characteristics of each exchange, the derivatives exchanges currently can be divided into the following categories. Large-scale comprehensive exchanges are developing in all aspects including spot, derivatives and OTC. Large-scale derivatives exchanges are fully developing contract transactions. Compliant exchanges focus on the construction of compliance systems. Decentralized exchanges’ derivatives marching was represented by the listing of BTC perpetual in dYdX.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 The classification standard of derivatives exchanges,Source: TokenInsight

“The entire contract market has developed rapidly this quarter. Exchanges have opened DeFi-related contracts to give opportunities to carry out financial hedging operations to reduce risks. In the fourth quarter, mainstream digital assets’ bull market may come, as institutes aggressively purchasing them. The contract market will continue to grow exponentially as the trading market expands.”

BitZ VP Maggie

4.4 Large derivatives exchange

“ Perpetual contracts is the main business of large derivatives exchanges, and the growth of transaction volume this quarter is less than the market average

Taking the quarterly transaction exceeding $50B, and mainly providing derivatives trading as the standard, large derivatives exchanges include Bybit, FTX and BitMEX. They adopt a segments-market strategy specially serving professional derivatives traders. Only FTX has some spot transactions volume ($7.2B, accounting for 10.8% of its total trading volume). Meanwhile, perpetual contracts contributed most of the trading volume to large derivatives exchanges, of which Bybit does not provide delivery contracts.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Perpetual and delivery contracts on large derivatives exchanges,Source: TokenInsight
2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 Daily trading volume of large derivatives exchanges,Source: TokenInsight

The average daily volume of FTX in this quarter increased by 24.9%, compared with the previous quarter. However, the growth of Bybit’s trading volume was much lower than the market average, while BitMEX’s average daily trading volume continued declining (-12.5%). Large derivatives exchanges were impacted by the development of other types of exchanges’ derivatives business during the quarter.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Changes in 20Q2 and Q3 large derivatives exchange daily average volume,Source: TokenInsight

4.5 Large Comprehensive exchange

“ The average derivatives volume of large comprehensive exchanges was 2.1 times to their spot volume, and the gap between the top two exchanges narrowed

In this quarter, the ratio of large comprehensive exchange derivatives trading volume to spot trading volume dropped from 4.4 times to 2.1 times. Huobi Futures still ranked first in average daily trading volume, reaching $5.67B. The second-ranked Binance average daily trading volume ($5.26B) narrowed their gap from the 30% to 7.8%. The average daily trading volume of OKEx is $3.09B.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 daily trading volume of derivatives on large comprehensive exchanges,Source: TokenInsight

The expansion advantages of large comprehensive exchanges in the spot business and competition in the derivatives industry led to a decline in the proportion of derivatives transactions in this quarter. Huobi Futures’ derivatives trading volume is 3.06 times to the spot trading volume, accounting for 75.4% of its total trading volume. It is the largest proportion of derivatives business among large comprehensive exchanges. Binance and OKEx derivatives trading volume accounted for 61.2% and 63.9% of its total volume, respectively. Compared with the previous quarter, the ratio of the derivatives-total trading volume of the three dropped by over 10%.

Binance’s average daily volume in this quarter rose 42.5% from the previous, far exceeding the market average (22.8%). The average daily volume growth of Huobi Futures and OKEx was lower than the market average, reaching 19% and 15.5%.

“Affected by DeFi, users have a wait-and-see sentiment. Large institutions have gradually held mainstream assets, and shall not use them to invest in other digital assets.”

HBTC CEO James Ju

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q2-Q3 Change in large comprehensive exchange daily transaction volume,Source: TokenInsight

In this quarter, Binance derivatives holdings increased from $600M at the beginning to $982M at the end, with a growth rate of 63.5%. Huobi Futures and OKEx derivatives holdings at the beginning of the quarter were $730M and $787M, respectively, higher than Binance’s initial value. But the growth was only 13% and 12%.

It is worth noting that Binance’s holdings fluctuated sharply during the end of August and the beginning of September. Large amount trading may cause this phenomenon. Meanwhile, when the market’s open interest fell on September 25, Binance’s open interest did not change significantly.

The gap between OKEx and Huobi’s average daily holdings narrowed from 24% to 7% in the previous quarter. The large changes in the position reflect the fierce competition for funds among platforms in a certain extent.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 Large comprehensive exchange derivatives daily open interest,Source: TokenInsight
2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q2–20Q3 Ratio between derivative/spot transaction in large comprehensive exchange,Source: TokenInsight

4.6 Compliant Exchange

“ The transaction volume of some compliant exchanges has grown rapidly, increasing the proportion of the overall derivatives volume of compliant exchanges

Bakkt, CME, and Kraken Futures (Crypto Facilities) are the data-obtained compliant exchanges in this report. The three reported a total trading volume of $37.47B this quarter. Among the three, CME and Bakkt focus on the derivatives trading services. Kraken’s spot business volume this quarter was $22.16B, which was $3.6 times to its derivatives volume.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q2-Q3 compliant exchange trading volume overview,Source: TokenInsight

In the third quarter, the transaction volume of derivatives on compliant exchanges increased by 73.3% (market average: 25.1%). Among them, Bakkt’s transaction volume increased by 351.9%, and CME’s growth volume was 80.6%, which also far exceeded the market average. Meanwhile, the market share of compliant exchanges achieved better expansion this quarter. The trading volume of derivatives increased from 1% to 1.39%.

Although the digital asset derivatives compliance system is still at an early stage, data shows that there is a demand for compliance transactions focused on derivatives, and such exchanges have good potential. However, the improvement of the compliance system is affected by many factors.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Percentage of trading volume on compliant exchanges in 20Q3,Source: TokenInsight

“Digital asset contract transaction is just a drop of water in the ocean of investment. Its customers scale is still small. Exchanges can only ‘embrace the ocean’ by providing safe and streamlined products and improving customer’s trust degree. This is the direction Bitcoinwin strives for.”

Bitcoinwin Founder Michael Su

“Currently, digital assets are facing two serious problems. OTC is a channel for money laundering. The second is that unregulated exchanges do not need to pay taxes. The domestic government pays attention to the outflow of fiat currency. This is an alarm for everyone. ”

Hopex CMO Jenny Zhang

4.7 Decentralized Exchange

“ The popularity of derivatives trading on decentralized exchanges gradually decreased in August and September, and its trading volume was affected by the overall derivatives market

The decentralized exchange dYdX launched the PBTC-USDC trading pair in June, and reported a trading volume of approximately $68.7M this quarter, accounting for approximately 0.0025% of the total market volume.

The dYdX’s trading volume in July increased by 14% month-on-month, while the whole derivatives volume increased by only 7% during the same period. However, the popularity of the product gradually faded in later months, and the proportion of transaction volume continued decreasing.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
dYdX contract trading volume and its ratio to the total market derivatives trading volume,Source: TokenInsight

In addition, the trading volume of this contract product accounting for about 10% of dYdX’s total volume this quarter, down 6% from when it was launched in June. The decentralized derivatives market is not yet mature, and its actual market demand needs to be considered. But at the same time, there are continuous decentralized exchanges in the industry to lay out derivatives, and DEXs that focus on providing contract transactions such as MCDEX and Injective Protocol have been launched one after another.

In addition, it is worth noting that the correlation coefficient between the dYdX contract and the whole derivatives volume is 0.71. This shows that for contract products launched by DEXs, their trading volume is more susceptible to the impact of the overall derivatives market.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
dYdX Q3 transaction distribution,Source: TokenInsight

“Compared with the spot, of course the function of the contract is more powerful. The contract has one more time dimension than the spot. In the contract market, users can either go long or short.”OKEx CEO Jay Hao

5. Products Overview

5.1 Contract distribution

“ While the volume of perpetual continues growing, some exchanges focus on delivery

As shown in the figure on the left, the proportion of perpetual contract transactions rose to 80%. This figure was 39.1% in the first quarter of 2020 and 75.2% in the second quarter. This change shows that the focus of traders continues shifting from delivery to perpetual contracts.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 Whole market perpetual contract and delivery contract volume comparison,Source: TokenInsight

Considering the different product strategies of each exchanges, TokenInsight took the five large exchanges with quarterly trading volume of more than $50B as examples, shows the composition of their derivatives trading volume. See the figure below for details.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 Large derivatives/comprehensive exchanges contract distribution,Source: TokenInsight

In this quarter, Huobi Futures perpetual volume increased from $125B to $254B, and the percentage of perpetual increased by 13.7%, making it the exchange with the largest increase in volume composition among large exchanges. OKEx’s dominance of delivery contract volume also weakened, with the proportion falling by 4% this quarter. However, when exchanges generally shifted their focus to perpetual, Binance began to make efforts to delivery contracts. Binance delivery contracts increased 8.8 times this quarter. It can be seen that competition among large exchanges is fierce, and each exchange has actively deploying segments of the market.

5.2 Dominant contract

“ Affected by DeFi, the dominance of BTC contracts weakened. The trading volume of Ethereum and DeFi assets contracts increased significantly

In this quarter, BTC contract volume accounted for 65% of the total derivatives volume, a 17% decrease from the previous quarter. The volume of the three major contracts (that is, BTC, ETH and EOS) accounted for 85%, a decrease of 10% from the previous quarter. Due to the popularity of DeFi this quarter, the volume of Ethereum contracts increased significantly. Meanwhile, exchanges continue to launch DeFi contracts, and the increase in the diversity of the derivatives market has impacted on the proportion of Bitcoin contract transactions and weakened its dominant position.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 Dominant contract market share compared with Q2,Source: TokenInsight

“I expect there will be a great improvement in U-margin contract. Except for BTC and ETH, other cryptos will also increase.”Deribit Head of Asian Business Lin”The digital asset industry is tracing the traditional financial industry, and will magnify it 2 times. It is very promising in all aspects but the risks are also great.”

BitMart Founder Sheldon Xia

5.3 Options overview

“ New players come to the game, and the exchanges actively build the Options LEGO Kingdom

Following the launch of BTC American Options on Binance in the second quarter, Huobi Futures launched USDT margin Options and officially entered the Options market this quarter. Meanwhile, the derivatives trading platform Bit.com was launched this quarter. Its Options products had occupied 6% market share at the end of September. In general, the entrance of large exchanges shows Options market potential.

From a product perspective, the current Options market is still dominated by European Options. Options provided by different exchanges are different in design. In addition to the T-type quotation mechanism adopted by Deribit, OKEx, Huobi, etc., there are also inquiry mechanisms represented by FTX and ATM mechanisms represented by Binance.

Deribit’s Options transaction volume accounted for more than 80% of the market this quarter, firmly occupying the top position in the Options market. Its daily trading volume can reach more than $45M.

In terms of holdings, at the end of September 2020, the open interest of Deribit’s BTC Options once reached $1.7B. During the same period, the holdings of CME, OKEx, and bit.com reached $295M, $121M, and $105M, respectively. The four are the main players in the current Options market.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 BTC Options trading volume of exchanges,Source: Skew, TokenInsight, Data collection range is September 24th-September 30th
2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
Comparison of open interest of BTC Options on exchanges,Source: Skew, TokenInsight

6. Users and Popularity

6.1 Popularity

“ At the end of July, the searching for the keyword “Bitcoin Futures” reached the peak of this quarter, and the popularity in China remained the highest

This quarter TokenInsight surveyed on the popularity of cryptocurrency derivatives keywords to analyze the user search popularity in the derivatives market.

As shown in the figure below, taking the widely distributed keyword “Bitcoin Futures” in the search terms related to derivatives as an example, TokenInsight has obtained the popularity trend of this keyword in 20Q3: in the third quarter, “Bitcoin Futures” reached the peak of this season at the end of July [2](100). Similarly, the popularity of “Bitcoin Derivatives” also peaked in late July. This phenomenon originated from the rise in Bitcoin prices during this period.

[2]Peak value measurement: The trend value represents the searching times relative to the highest point in the specified area and time in the chart. The highest score is 100 points; 50 represents half of the searching times to the peak; if there is not enough data, it is 0.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight

In terms of search sources, the top five countries/regions ranked by popularity are China (88), Cyprus (67), Singapore (60) and Lebanon (49).

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight

20Q3 Bitcoin Futures Google trend map,Source: Google Trend, TokenInsight

7.2 User distribution

“ Binance’s visit volume exceeded 100 million, and Huobi’s visit volume doubled compared with the second quarter. BitMEX has obvious user advantages in the pure derivatives platform

Binance’s visits[3]exceeded 100 million, which was significantly higher than other derivatives exchanges. BitMEX’s overall traffic this quarter is still in the leading among pure derivatives platforms, surpassing Bybit and Deribit approximately 218% and 1,053%, respectively. Meanwhile, Binance and Huobi derivatives platform traffics both increased compared with the previous quarter, and Huobi derivatives platform traffic rose nearly 120%.

[3]The comprehensive exchange traffic statistics are its derivatives platform, Futures has been omitted in the expression

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight

Statistics of traffics to online platforms of derivatives exchanges in 20Q3,Source: Similarweb; TokenInsight

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 Derivatives exchange online platform traffics change compared with Q2,Source: Similarweb; TokenInsight

According to Twitter data, in platforms that only provide derivatives trading, the rank of Twitter followers ranging from high to low is Bybit (91,000) and BitMEX (79,900) , Deribit (17,100), Hopex (1,557). While BitMEX and Bybit have a relatively large number of fans, their transaction volume also ranks among the top five in the industry. Although Hopex ranks in the top ten by volume, the number of fans is only about 1,500.

2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
20Q3 derivatives exchange Twitter followers statistics,Source: Twitter; TokenInsight
2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight
2020 Q3 Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Industry Report | TokenInsight

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TokenInsight
TokenInsight

Written by TokenInsight

Leading Data&Tech-driven Blockchain Financial Institution.

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