Thread by @_RJTodd

1/ Coming from equities, amazed by how much data gets packed into weekly CFTC COT reports. Some interesting items from CME/CBOE bitcoin futures data in 2Q19:

2/ Estimated notional value of CFTC regulated bitcoin futures (combined CME and CBOE historical values) has surged more than 270% since 1Q19, vs +150% increase in the price of bitcoin (jun 25th)

3/ Who’s driving volumes? At a high-level, speculators and smaller non-reportable traders (non-commerical traders make up > 75% most quarters). Commercial traders that hedge commodity input cost (miners, btc working capital biz) make up an immaterial portion of cme btc market

4/ What I find surprising given the surge in volumes is still how few reportable traders there are in this market. While CME did register its highest trader total last week, it still was below 50 (last Tuesday). Also looks like most traders carried accounts at both CBOE and CME

5/ To that point, CFTC regulated BTC futures market is pretty top heavy, with the four largest open interest short positions making up 75% of last weeks total short OI, an all-time record. Imo it looks like volumes are being driven by only a few accounts vs new entrants

6/ Currently "hedge funds" make up more than half of total open interest on both long and short side. Curious to watch what happens with the 35% of OI that is currently "non-reportable" based on too small of a position size...

7/ ... also wondering who these "Other" traders are... Have to assume these traders were hedging underlying spot? Especially with this positioning going into Wednesday's surge in BTC price

Finally, looks like there are only 4-5 active asset managers/institutions playing in CME bitcoin futures market (who all went long at the right time). Also banks still aren't providing a dealer function for this market - yet?

This all came from a latest Genesis post. Happy to share the cleaned data file with subscribers
theblockcrypto.com/2019/07/01/2q1…