Bitcoin has risen over 100% in 2021 and has surged more than 600% in the past 12 months. It recently breached the $1 trillion market capitalization for the first time.
Acceptance and adoption have driven bitcoin to current levels. Companies such as Tesla have indicated that they will accept bitcoin payments from customers, and fintech giants PayPal and Square offer users the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrency, and potentially even transact them at stores. The sheer market cap of the cryptocurrency space, which now stands at over $2 trillion, is simply too large for institutional investors to risk missing out.
CME Bitcoin futures have witnessed 40 successful futures expiration settlements, with over 8,000 individual accounts trading the contracts. Year to date, 12,500 CME Bitcoin futures contracts (equivalent to approximately 62,300 bitcoin) have traded on average each day.