Bitcoin futures trading volume on Binance widened to 7.82 times spot volume, marking the largest gap on record. Cointelegraph reported on Aug. 7 that Binance’s daily bitcoin futures volume this week was tallied at $57.82 billion, while spot volume was $6.08 billion.

CryptoQuant analysed that bitcoin trading is tilting more toward derivatives than spot. Arab Chain, a contributing analyst at CryptoQuant, said futures volume is rising faster than spot as bitcoin trades near $64,000. He added that a trend is emerging in which investors and traders prefer futures for leverage, risk management and short-term trading strategies.

The gap has emerged amid a slowdown in investment demand over the past few months. As of 30 days, both spot and derivatives demand are weakening, and spot demand has been falling since June.

Bitcoin’s price staying slightly above $60,000 over the past two months has also affected the contraction in spot trading. When bitcoin first fell to the $60,000 level in February, realised on-chain losses rose sharply, but volumes were lower when it later retested the same price range. That means fatigue has increased among both buyers and sellers.

Ki Young Ju (주기영), chief executive officer of CryptoQuant, said in a post on X in late last month that spot demand for bitcoin is weakening. He said futures demand is still in net increase, but is far lower than during the rebound three months earlier.