The bitcoin (BTC) market has reached a new all-time high, related to traditional investors. This is the open interest of digital currency options on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

In the last 24 hours, bitcoin options open interest on the CME reached around $2 billion (USD). This has never been seen before in history, as shown by the red line in the following graph from The Block data explorer:

Open interest refers to the total number of active futures or options contracts for a financial asset. Such contracts allow the asset to be bought or sold at a specified future date at an agreed price. This instrument is normally used by traditional and experienced investors.

The rise or fall of open interest works as a metric about your trading activity, liquidity, and market sentiment. When it grows, it generally reflects an increase in bullish investor enthusiasm.

Currently, the CME is the exchange with the highest trading volume in bitcoin options , amounting to around $5 billion. This is followed by Binance with $4.5 billion and Bybit with $3.3 billion, as the following list from the Coinglass explorer shows:

In the open interest of bitcoin options, purchase contracts currently dominate over sales contracts (65% vs. 35%) expiring at the end of December. This trend is a bullish indicator for the price, since it means greater demand.