According to external sources, Binance has again surpassed the CME to become the trading platform with the highest balance of futures in bitcoin. This change, which emerged after several months of CME's fall, also allowed the market to revisit whether previous narratives surrounding “institutional entry” were overly dependent on a single indicator.

There's been a reversal in the holdout ranking.

As of the data mentioned in the report, Binance held about 14.85 million bitcoins of futures in Bitcoin, about $9.6 billion at current prices, and CME about 10.28 million BTCs, about $6.7 billion. The gap between the two is about 45,000 BTCs and is still widening.

According to the article, this was the first time since the end of 2023 that Binance had again exceeded CME. Over the past two years, CME has been a long-standing leader and is often seen as an important signal of the entry of traditional institutional funds into the Bitcoin derivatives market.

Gains on the base have fallen to the bottom of the dollar.

According to external sources, the CME growth had been due largely to cash and arbitrage transactions rather than to mere directional bets. It is common practice to buy spot bitcoin, or buy spotbitcoin ETF, while selling futures at CME to earn a premium on futures relative to currents.

In 2024 and the first half of 2025, the annualized futures base spread, driven by bitcoin increases, reached once between 15 and 20 per cent, which was significantly higher than the traditional solid revenue, thus attracting the continued participation of hedge funds, self-employed trading institutions and others.

But with more money coming in, and bitcoin prices falling from the top, CME's three-month futures base year-on-year difference has been reduced to about 3% in 2026. This level is lower than the return of approximately 3.8 per cent on the United States biennial Treasury debt, and the arbitrage space has decreased significantly.

Part of the money is going to last.

For agencies, this means that funds continue to be used for such transactions, and it is difficult to cover such costs as bonds, counterparty risks and quarterly warehouse exchanges. According to this article, the CME fallback is more a change in the calculation of earnings than a market panic.

The article states that the funds leaving CME did not completely exit the Bitcoin derivatives market, and that part of this was diverted to a permanent offshore contract. There is no maturity date for the renewal of the contract and the use of financial rates to match the spot price has long been a mainstream tool for encrypted derivatives transactions.

The report cites data that sustainable contracts account for about 90 per cent of the global trade in encrypted derivatives. The share of Binance in the market for a centralized and sustainable contract is about 33 per cent, followed by OKX and Bybit. In the first quarter of 2026, Binance ' s share of the permanent contract increased to approximately 40 per cent against the backdrop of a fall in the overall volume of encrypted transactions.

According to external sources, the shift from market and quantitative institutions to sustainable contracts is mainly due to the fact that these products are liquid and do not need to be renewed on a quarterly basis and that the guarantee arrangements are more flexible. In the case of neutral strategic funds, the mechanism of long-term contractual rates may still provide benefits close to old base-side transactions and more efficient use of funds.

CME expedites the completion of transactions

However, the article also states that this does not mean that the traditional large Wall Street institutions are moving directly to Binance. Migration is more likely to be concentrated on encrypted start-ups, quantitative trading companies and small and medium-sized hedge funds operating across jurisdictions.

Faced with a decline in shares, CME did not stay in the same pattern. It was reported that CME had introduced encrypted futures and options on May 29, 2026 for a 24-hour period of seven days and on June 1st a bitcoin fluctuations for futures in an attempt to close the gap with encrypted original platforms in terms of trading time and product tools.

According to the article, these adjustments have partly addressed the pain, but are not necessarily sufficient to reverse the trend. Because the core of current market changes is not just the time of the transaction, but the re-selection of institutional funds to more efficient derivatives after the rate of return has fallen.

Additional information:By medium-calibre CME futures in bitcoin decreased from about 175,000 BTCs at the beginning of 2026 to about 103,000 BTCs in August, a decrease of over 40 per cent for eight months.