Trading Volume for Bakkt's Bitcoin Futures Hit Just $5 Million in First Week

The Intercontinental Exchange's highly anticipated bitcoin futures contract mustered just $5 million of total trading - and its daily product traded fewer than five contracts across its first week.

According to the exchange's Bakkt division, set up last year by the Atlanta-based company as a new marketplace for digital assets, some 623 monthly bitcoin futures contracts changed hands last week.

Each of Bakkt's futures contracts represents one bitcoin, so the total trading volume works out to just over $5 million, based on the current price of $8,322.

By comparison, some 4,099 bitcoin futures contracts traded on Friday alone at rival Chicago-based exchange operator CME, whose market opened in 2017.

The CME's futures contracts represent five bitcoins, for a trading volume of $165 million on the single day.

Bakkt's daily futures contracts fared even more poorly, with fewer than six contracts trading throughout the first week.

Executives at Bakkt had touted the new contract as a milestone for the cryptocurrency industry, catering to big institutional investors that have thus far been slow to buy bitcoin and other digital assets.

According to the exchange, the new offering should appeal to institutional investors like hedge funds and other money managers because bitcoin must be delivered to fulfill the contract's terms when the maturity date arrives.

Damon Leavell, a spokesman for Intercontinental Exchange, said in an email that there was "Strong industry participation" during the first week of the new bitcoin contract.

The contract maturing in October, he said, had the "Tightest bid-offer spreads in the market, which was an exciting achievement."