Cryptocurrency derivatives volumes have soared to a new all-time high of $602 billion in May, and have been gaining market share in the space. Top exchanges trading crypto derivatives were BitMEX, Binance, OKEx, and Huobi.

The European Union’s law enforcement agency, Europol, has its eyes set on Bitcoin privacy tool Wasabi Wallet as it makes things harder for the agency when tracking criminals using BTC.

HDR Global Trading Limited, the parent firm of crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX, has offered a $100,000 grant to Bitcoin Core researcher Gleb Naumenko.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Crypto Derivatives Volumes Hit an All-time High in May
• EU’s Europol Eyes Bitcoin Privacy Tool Wasabi Wallet
• BitMEX Parent Firm Offers $100,000 Grant to Bitcoin Core Researcher

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $9,782.01 (1.47%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $2.77 bn. As for ether (ETH), it is trading at $243.83 (0.06%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $875.57 million. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is currently tracking at 3,286.56 (0.23%).

Crypto Derivatives Volumes Hit an All-time High in May

CryptoCompare found in its May 2020 Exchange Review that cryptocurrency derivatives volumes have soared to a new all-time high of $602 billion throughout the month, up 32% from April. Crypto derivatives are, in fact, gaining market share.

Total spot volumes increased 5% to $1.27 trillion in May, which means that derivatives represented 32% of the market, compared to 27% in April. Most of the trading in derivatives came from leading exchanges in the space: BitMEX, Binance, OKEx, and Huobi.

Huobi was the largest when it comes to derivatives trading volumes, with $176 billion being traded on it last month, up 29% from April. OKEx and Binance came in second and third, with $156 billion and $139 billion respectively.

Institutional options volumes also hit record levels in May, with CME’s options volumes reaching a high of 5,986 contracts being traded in May, representing 16 times April’s volumes.

EU’s Europol Eyes Bitcoin Privacy Tool Wasabi Wallet

The European Union’s law enforcement agency, Europol, is reportedly eyeing the popular bitcoin privacy tool Wasabi Wallet. A two-part report by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), reads “things are not looking good” for law enforcement because of the software.

The report, citing data from blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis estimating how much money is moved through Wasabi, highlights tensions between governments and BTC privacy advocates, While the blockchain is transparent, Wasabi wallet tries to get around the transparency and improve privacy by scrambling transactions together and making things hard for blockchain sleuths.

As a result, Wasabi may a useful tool for criminals looking to hide their tracks:

“According to [Chainalysis], over the last three weeks, BTC in the amount of nearly 50 million USD were deposited into Wasabi with almost 30% coming from dark web markets.”

Europol’s report was leaked on Telegram, and does not contain any operational information.

BitMEX Parent Firm Offers $100,000 Grant to Bitcoin Core Researcher

The parent firm of cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform BitMEX, HDR Global Trading Limited, has awarded a $100,000 grant to Bitcoin Core contributor and researcher Gleb Naumenko. Speaking to The Block, Naumenko revealed the grant was to be distributed monthly over a year, providing him stable income.

The Bitcoin Core researcher and contributor has been working on the flagship cryptocurrency implementation since 2017 with a primary focus on security, privacy, and scalability. He has worked with Chaincode Labs, a research and development group for bitcoin.

The developer is set to keep on working on bitcoin’s security and privacy, and on protocols built on top of the cryptocurrency’s network. These include the layer-two scaling solution, the Lightning Network, to which he has already contributed.

This is HDR’s second bitcoin developer grand, with the first one being granted in March to Michael Ford. The March grant was also of $100,000.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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