##NEWS - Institutional Demand Surges: CME Tops Binance in Bitcoin Futures
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has surpassed crypto exchange Binance as the largest bitcoin futures exchange by open interest. According to data from Coinglass, CME now has $3.99 billion in open positions across 108,900 bitcoin contracts. This represents 24.3% of the total bitcoin futures market. Binance trails CME with $3.77 billion in open interest, down 12.76% in the last 24 hours. Its 102,790 bitcoin contracts now make up 22.97% of the total market. CME’s rise to become the top bitcoin futures exchange by open interest highlights growing demand from institutional investors to gain exposure to bitcoin through regulated derivatives products.
Institutions have been accumulating bitcoin in bulk. A prime example is MicroStrategy, which continues to accumulate bitcoin even as prices trade significantly above its average purchase price. According to on-chain data analytics firm Lookonchain, the enterprise software company spent another $5.3 million in October to acquire 155 bitcoins at an average price of $34,194.
The company’s October purchase is already up by 7.1%, with an unrealized profit of $377,768. MicroStrategy now holds a total of 158,400 bitcoins acquired at an average cost of $29,587 per coin. With bitcoin currently trading around $36,000, MicroStrategy is sitting on paper profits of over $1.08 billion on its bitcoin investment. According to Saylor Tracker, MicroStrategy’s BTC stash stands at a 22.91% unrealized profit at press time.
This surge in open interest comes at a time when bitcoin briefly touched $37,926 before dropping to $36,579 by press time. BTC is down by 0.5% in the last 24 hours.
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