Outstanding bitcoin futures contracts have climbed to a one-month high, suggesting a rebound of speculative activity surrounding the cryptocurrency after a string of positive news headlines that appear to have stabilized the market.
The aggregated dollar value of open interest – bitcoin futures contracts traded but not settled – has climbed to $13.1 billion, the highest since May 19, data from Skew shows. For the past month, open interest mostly stood in the range of $10.5 billion to $13 billion.
Open interest is usually seen as a measure of market activity. Higher open interest means more open contracts, or additional money flowing into the market.
“The crypto market is coming back to life,” the Norwegian analysis firm Arcane Research wrote Tuesday in a report.
However, the value of open interest is still less than half of the $27.4 billion peak reached in mid-April, when the bitcoin price reached a record high near $65,000.
The largest cryptocurrency was changing hands around $40,600 as of press time.