BroadChain has learned that on April 9, according to The Block, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin futures market continues to weaken. Data shows that the average daily open interest for March 2026 has fallen below $80 billion, dropping further to approximately $72 billion in early April, marking a new low since February 2024 and representing the fifth consecutive month of decline. Meanwhile, the monthly trading volume for March fell to $163 billion, nearly halving from the peak in January 2025.
Market analysis indicates that this round of decline is primarily due to the large-scale unwinding of "basis trades." Previously, institutions drove the growth of CME open interest by purchasing spot ETFs and shorting CME futures to capture the price spread. However, as the Bitcoin price retreated from a high of $120,000 to below $70,000, the annualized basis spread has significantly compressed.
The current basis spread of about 5% is now close to the approximately 4.5% risk-free rate level. When factoring in funding costs and counterparty risk, the arbitrage opportunity has essentially disappeared, prompting leveraged capital to withdraw.