http://cryptocoinjunky.com/wall-street-traded-572-million-in-bitcoin-futures-during-tuesdays-bull-run/As noted by Mati Greenspan, a senior market analyst at eToro, this rally was fueled in the spot markets by the usual suspects — traders in Japan and South Korea — who provided a surge of volume to help push the bitcoin price past key levels.
“According to the volume on exchanges, it seems clear that the rally is being led by East Asia,” Greenspan wrote, “The US Dollar had a spike as well but it was much more focused. Meaning that the Americans only participated during the extreme part of the surge and less in the before and after party.”
That’s not to say that the U.S. was absent from the rally. In fact, Greenspan said, trading data from Chicago-based. derivatives exchanges CME and CBOE — the only two regulated U.S. exchanges to list bitcoin futures — suggests that Wall Street wants a piece of the action.
Tuesday trading volume on CME reached 12,878 contracts across all expiration dates, worth an equivalent 64,390 BTC (each contract represents 5 BTC). CBOE traders exchanged 7,138 contracts, each equivalent to 1 BTC, bringing total U.S. bitcoin futures volume to 71,528 BTC. At $8,000 per coin — the mean of Tuesday’s opening and settlement price in CME’s August futures market — this translates into a daily volume of $572.2 million.
