Thus far the massive speculation around the future markets has not been justified, and probably never will. I think the market was hyped up because of how easily these futures would allow institutions to buy exposure, but people simply forgot that futures, regardless of how much is being bought (which is super low at this point), won't be doing anything, which also makes sense. Think like this, how can something that doesn't take a single satoshi out of circulation impact the market? It's impossible, and thus you are correct to not look at them. Futures are nothing more than tools for people and professional parties to gamble with, and that's not helping at all. It's waiting for tools backed by an actual number of coins (coins that will be taken out of circulation) to be introduced to start affecting the market positively for real.

Another indication of people thinking future markets had any sort of importance, was just before the first future contracts were going to expire. People were speculating about a dip, then an increase, etc. It again proved that futures are nothing more than a gimmick not adding any value to this market. Let's wait for more useful tools to show up in the forthcoming years.