Gate News message, April 9, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin futures market continues to weaken. Data show that the March 2026 average daily open interest (OI) has fallen to below $8 billion, and in early April it further dropped to about $7.2 billion, hitting a new low since February 2024, and has been declining for the fifth consecutive month. At the same time, March’s monthly trading volume fell to $163 billion, nearly Slump by 50% compared with the January 2025 peak.
Market analysis indicates that this round of decline is mainly driven by the large-scale unwinding of “basis trades.” Previously, institutions increased their CME positions by buying spot ETFs and shorting CME futures to capture the spread yield. However, as the Bitcoin price pulled back from the $120k high to below $70k, the annualized basis spread return was significantly compressed. The current basis yield of about 5% is approaching the level of the roughly 4.5% risk-free interest rate. After factoring in funding costs and counterparty risk, the arbitrage space has essentially disappeared, prompting leveraged capital to exit.
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