Cryptonews Altcoin News ‘Challenges’ to Crypto Traders as Lower Volatility Expected; Solana Derivatives Wanted

‘Challenges’ to Crypto Traders as Lower Volatility Expected; Solana Derivatives Wanted

Fredrik Vold

Last updated: June 26, 2023 06:55 EDT | 2 min read

High volatility is necessary to attract traders to the crypto derivatives space, and institutions would most like to see new derivatives contracts backed by altcoins such as solana (SOL), polkadot (DOT), cardano (ADA) and stablecoins, a new report from the derivatives-focused analytics firm Acuiti has found.

Despite high volatility is a common criticism of the crypto market, a reduction in volatility and more stable prices will “pose challenges to digital assets,” the analysts said.

At the same time, survey results cited in the report showed that more than two-thirds of surveyed executives in the financial services industry estimate that the crypto market will become less volatile as it matures.

The firm found the answers by surveying an unspecified group of senior executives at prop trading firms, hedge funds, banks, brokers and exchanges, collectively referred to as Acuiti’s ‘Expert Network’.

Notably, it is the initiatives taken by firms already present in the digital asset space that have the greatest potential to reduce volatility.

Chief among these initiatives are efforts to bring more institutional liquidity into the space, something which is believed to lead to lower volatility, and in turn make trading in digital assets less attractive, the report said.

SOL and stablecoin contracts wanted

While the crypto spot market is well-known for a huge selection of digital assets to trade, the same cannot always be said about the crypto derivatives market, which encompasses both futures and options markets.

According to the executives surveyed in the report, derivatives contracts based on Solana’s native token SOL are the most sought after among traders. The token was followed by the two stablecoins tether (USDT) and USD coin (USDC) as the second and third most sought-after derivatives contracts, while DOT and ADA came in 4^th and 5^th, respectively.

Binance remains top futures exchange

Meanwhile, the report said that among all exchanges that offer bitcoin (BTC) futures trading, Binance is largest in terms of open interest with a 26% market share.

The major exchange, which also ranks as the top exchange by spot trading volume, was followed by Bybit with a 22% market share, and the more institutionally focused CME with a 14% market share.

Bitcoin futures exchanges by open interest:

Looking at bitcoin options, however, Binance came in last with a market share of just 0.08%. Instead, the absolutely dominant bitcoin options exchange, according to the report, was Deribit, with a market share of 90%.

Following Deribit, OKX (formerly OKEx) and CME came in as the next largest bitcoin options exchanges with a market share of 3.28% each, Acuiti’s report found.

Bitcoin options exchanges by volume: