Bakkt BTC Options Volumes Are Dull One Month After Their Launch

A little more than a month after their launch, we can see that the Bakkt BTC options are lackluster and the contracts on the Intercontinental Exchange’s platform appear to be receiving sluggish uptakes. The latest reports in the cryptocurrency news today from January 24 and January 27 shows that 11 days have elapsed since the last trade.

As we previously reported, Bakkt launched the new BTC options contract in early December – a short while after it rolled out the cash-settled Bitcoin (BTC) futures offering in November.

For those of you who don’t know, the Bakkt BTC options are basically derivatives which are designed to provide traders with more flexibility hedge against the price swings of an asset in both directions. Therefore, an options contract gives users the chance to purchase either a right to buy (a call option) or sell (a put option) the given asset at a specified “strike price” which is determined on or before the contract’s expiration date.

Both of the new options contract and the cash-settled futures followed after Bakkt’s existing physically delivered Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) Monthly Futures contract – which is basically a pioneering product that was the first in the industry to give futures traders direct exposure to the underlying cryptocurrency.

As we reported before, the physically-settled futures contract had met with many underwhelming volumes in its early days. This was a fact that was unfavorably compared with the BTC futures on CME which first went to the market in December 2017.

However, the uptake for the product eventually rose which came in correlation with a period of volatility in the Bitcoin price and the spot market valuation at the time (during October and November 2019).

Aside from the Bakkt BTC options, there are other market participants including the Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange OKEx and CME which have both launched or plan to launch the Bitcoin options contracts this year.

Meanwhile, the Bitcoin and altcoin news today show that the price action is solid as Bitcoin rises to new highs at $9,292 and Ether follows, now stable at $176 with a 2% surge. The only loser in the top 10 today is Bitcoin SV (BSV) which lost 4.44% of its value and is now sitting at $288.