Re: [2018-07-12] Bitcoin Futures Volume Spike As Cboe Awaits ETF Decision
I am not a big supporter of these Bitcoin Futures, because I think it creates incentives to manipulate the Bitcoin price. These people have a lot of fiat to be in a position to manipulate the price on several exchanges. 
The futures markets shouldn't *yet* be taken seriously. People think they are important and manipulative because the price went down after CME went live with its markets. For some odd reason people don't believe that this market can move without it being manipulated or influenced by external elements. The mainstream media made the futures markets look like a monster, and they add fuel to the fire by pointing out that the tulip bulb mania ended when futures were introduced.
Let's look at the volumes of the futures markets of yesterday.
CBOE; 1117 contracts worth 1117BTC = $7,000,000
CME; 1740 contracts worth 8700BTC = $54,000,000
Bitcoin's 24H volume $3,500,000,000
These future markets aren't even enough to tickle Ethereum.
The volume is getting bigger over time, it's something to consider when the contract set especially towards the end of the contract.
Look at the article, mentioned that CME has 6739 contracts but if you check the site1, 6180 contracts have sold worth $192,846,900. And the record for CBOE recorded on April 25th was 18,000+ contracts traded for May and it's around 2634 contracts sold for August and September.
Nevertheless, the volume indicates the interest of bitcoin market and big whales can slightly manipulate the market by buying and selling bitcoin according to the contract's deadline which occasionally intrigues the market to panic sell. Traders may just buy 100 or 200 contracts but they also can buy 1000-2000 bitcoin at the current rate, waiting for the price increase and dump it by the end of the day.