The CME Group has recorded significant volume for its Bitcoin futures trading product over the past 12 months. "More than 2.2 million contracts were traded by 2020," a CME representative told Cointelegraph. Each Bitcoin futures contract is cashed at CME with a value of 5 Bitcoins. That means 11 million Bitcoins have been traded.
CME recorded higher-than-normal numbers as Bitcoin's price rose in December 2020 after breaking the December 17, 2017 ATH level of $ 19,892 on that exact date three years later. "Average daily volume of BTC (ADV) reached 11,179 contracts (equivalent to 55.9K bitcoin) in December, an increase of 114% over the same period last year," said a CME representative.
The average daily open contract, also known as ADOI, "hit a record 11,108 contracts (equivalent to 55,540 bitcoins) in Q4, up 233% from Q4 2019," according to a statement from CME Group. Large players also appeared to trade, as evident in the large open contract holders of the exchange, or LOIH. “The number of LOIHs rose to a record 110 in the first week of December, indicating a growing institutional interest,” said a CME representative.
CME is planning a February launch for its Ether (ETH) futures contract, first announced in December 2020.

Several major financial institutions have expressed an interest in Bitcoin in 2020, including MicroStrategy and Square, which has allocated large sums of capital to the first asset of the cryptocurrency.

According to Cointelegraph

Ava Labs is the open source platform in the decentralized financial (DeFi) space and has launched a full-featured Avalanche mainnet (mainnet) for DeFi applications as well as blockchain development in 2020.
DeFi refers to financial applications built on blockchain technology. The space grows at a rapid rate in the crypto industry but is also suffering from enormous pressure on the Ethereum network, with problems like network congestion and high fees hampering development. The Avalanche platform is trying to solve these problems and drive growth, joining the DeFi space.
Emin Gün Sirer, CEO and co-founder of Ava Labs said:
"Avalanche is ready to launch and we're excited to show the world how capable it is."
Avalanche launch event comes 16 months after the Ava Labs group exits ‘stealth mode’. During this period, the team at Ava Labs ran three test networks before believing it was the right time to launch Avalanche. Sirer said:
“We become more vocal when we've accomplished milestones, but we tend to believe in performance, not speaking. There is a lot of talk in our space and the only way to get around it is to build truly new technology that allows for leaps and bounds.
What is Avalanche?
Avalanche is a smart contract blockchain platform that validates transactions in less than 1 second, allowing millions of independent validators to participate as full block generation nodes. The platform also has native tokens (AVAX), which are mainly used to secure the network through staking, pay operational fees, and create new networks on Avalanche itself.

Avalanche makes applications on Ethereum more scalable. Avalanche Contract Chain (C-Chain) is an implementation of the Ethereum virtual machine, a blockchain-based platform used to launch decentralized applications (dapps). This means DeFi apps on Ethereum are looking for an alternative blockchain solution that can seamlessly penetrate the Avalanche ecosystem.

“To be clear, these are not easy improvements. It was the first major foray in our space since Bitcoin's whitepaper to hit these benchmarks, ”added Sirer.

DeFi's status

The total value locked up in DeFi has grown from around 1.5 billion to around $ 23 billion in the past half year. Amid this exponential growth, the DeFi space is also constrained by hacks and user losses. For example, the DeFi bZx protocol was hacked for the third time in 2020, causing user losses of more than $ 8 million.

“Recent developments have emphasized how young the space is and how much mature it must still be before it can really explode. Users will continue to learn from mistakes and approach new projects with healthy scrutiny, basic technology will improve and DeFi contracts solidified through the battle of testing ”, Sirer said.

According to Decrypt

The CME Group has recorded significant volume for its Bitcoin futures trading product over the past 12 months. "More than 2.2 million contracts were traded by 2020," a CME representative told Cointelegraph. Each Bitcoin futures contract is cashed at CME with a value of 5 Bitcoins. That means 11 million Bitcoins have been traded.
CME recorded higher-than-normal numbers as Bitcoin's price rose in December 2020 after breaking the December 17, 2017 ATH level of $ 19,892 on that exact date three years later. "Average daily volume of BTC (ADV) reached 11,179 contracts (equivalent to 55.9K bitcoin) in December, an increase of 114% over the same period last year," said a CME representative.
The average daily open contract, also known as ADOI, "hit a record 11,108 contracts (equivalent to 55,540 bitcoins) in Q4, up 233% from Q4 2019," according to a statement from CME Group. Large players also appeared to trade, as evident in the large open contract holders of the exchange, or LOIH. “The number of LOIHs rose to a record 110 in the first week of December, indicating a growing institutional interest,” said a CME representative.
CME is planning a February launch for its Ether (ETH) futures contract, first announced in December 2020.

Several major financial institutions have expressed an interest in Bitcoin in 2020, including MicroStrategy and Square, which has allocated large sums of capital to the first asset of the cryptocurrency.

According to Cointelegraph