Derivatives behemothic BitMEX and cryptocurrency exchange Binance are the Bitcoin (BTC) industry'due south biggest — when ranked by open interest (OI).

According to updated rankings from exchange Bybit, as of May nineteen, the two household names now acme the list when it comes to the total OI on their derivatives contracts.

BitMEX open interest almost double Binance

Third place is Bybit itself, followed by Huobi and FTX. OI for BitMEX was in excess of $587 one thousand thousand at press time, with Binance somewhat lower at $314 million.

The OI took a significant hitting on BitMEX, in particular, in March — falling from over $1 billion to current levels of around one-half of that — when the Bitcoin cost crashed to lows of $iii,600, before beginning a recovery soon afterward.

Figures for the other three in the height v exchanges were $217 million for Bybit, while Huobi and FTX were on an equal footing at $114 million.

Top 10 Bitcoin exchanges by futures open interest

Top 10 Bitcoin exchanges by futures open up interest. Source: Bybit

Open involvement refers to the full value of outstanding derivatives contracts on a platform, in this case, related to Bitcoin futures.

High OI, when combined with high volume, can signal genuine interest from traders on both sides in BTC price operation. OI can also occur without volume support, however, which indicates more than speculative market place activity.

Only way is up for BTC futures ecosystem

As Cointelegraph reported, OI for not-exchange derivatives providers has increased significantly in recent weeks. CME Grouping'south contracts hit a record of $399 million before this month, while options volumes have grown one,000% this calendar month.

This week, meanwhile, aggregator CoinMarketCap began ranking exchanges by web traffic every bit a default setting, reversing a decision from last year which criticized the metric's validity.

Under that scenario, Binance is currently number one, though CoinMarketCap has cautioned that the new metric is still a piece of work in progress.