Investing.com - Cryptocurrency prices were higher on Monday, while a report found that trade volumes of Bitcoin futures listed on the CBOE and COE plummeted in the latter half of 2018.
With Bitcoin failing to get out of the $4,000 range in recent months, traders seem to have lost interest in the digital currency in the latter half of the year.
According to research from Tradeblock, the combined trade volume across the futures contracts offered by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) fell relative to spot market volume during the second half of 2018, with December the worst month.
“It will be interesting to see how these trends change, as the market prepares to launch several new bitcoin futures platforms,” the report said.
Bakkt, ErisX, and CoinFLEX are just some companies hoping to launch trading futures platforms soon.
Bitcoin inched up 0.16% to $3,623.10 as of 8:55 AM ET (13:55 GMT) on the Investing.com Index.
Cryptocurrencies overall were higher, with the total coin market capitalization at $121 billion at the time of writing compared to $111 billion on Friday.
Ethereum jumped 3.6% to $121.83 and XRP rose 0.5% to $0.30452 while Litecoin was at a three-month high of $44.352, up 1.3%.
Elsewhere, the mystery around Quadriga continues, as analysts have been unable to find evidence of the company’s cold wallets.
Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten died unexpectedly in India in early December and did not leave the password for access to customers wallets.
About C$180 million ($135.39 million) of digital coins are frozen in users accounts. The company owes C$250 million to 115,000 users.