Is Coinbase Losing Its Edge? Nano Bitcoin Futures Sees Low Interest

Coinbase is easily one of the most recognizable names in the crypto space and has had many successes when it comes to its products. It also became the first crypto company to go public and continues to trade on the open market. However, as the crypto bear market has crept in, various projects in the crypto space have taken a hit. And it seems Coinbase is not left out given how its latest launch is going.

Coinbase Launches Bitcoin Nano Futures

The Coinbase bitcoin nano futures had finally been launched on Monday. A nano bitcoin futures contract represents only 1.100th of a whole bitcoin, which makes it smaller than the CME micro futures. Even though it was anticipated, the market climate had no doubt affected the performance during this time. Coinbase had become the third platform to launch a cash-settled nano bitcoin futures with this launch but unlike its other counterparts, CME and Bakkt, the launch would go much slower for the crypto exchange.

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After the launch on Monday, the nano bitcoin futures had been able to pull in only 25.94 BTC in open interest. Thus, Coinbase was only accounting for 0.0052% of all of the global open interest. Its daily volume was just as slow with only $3.8 million recorded after the first day of trading.

CME trading at premium to offshore | Source: Arcane Research

This may not entirely be on the crypto platform as Monday was not an especially good trading day for the futures basis. CME recorded a decline in its futures basis following bitcoin’s price crash even though it had continued to trade at a premium to the offshore market. So it is not a far stretch to speculate that this had spilled onto the Coinbase launch and had triggered such slow interest in the nano bitcoin futures.

Stock Price Still Suffering

The Coinbase nano bitcoin futures is not the only thing from the crypto exchange that is having a hard time in the market. Coinbase’s stock continues to struggle through the market despite launching with such a high start price. Currently, the stock is trading at $49.75, more than 88% lower than its listing price back in 2021. 

Coinbase stock price down 89% from ATH | Source: Coinbase Global Inc. on TradingView.com

Coinbase’s struggles in the market have drawn speculations from industry experts on whether the going public was a premature move on the crypto exchange’s part. Its performance on the NASDAQ has been disappointing with the stock recording more red weekly closes than green ones.

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Nevertheless, the exchange remains very popular among crypto users. With daily volumes of more than $1.5 billion, it is ranked as the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, coming behind FTX and Binance. By 2021, the exchange had more than 56 million users and was valued a $65 billion. It also had $223 billion in assets under management for the same year.

Featured image from Banking Exchange, charts from Arcane Research and TradingView.com

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