The average daily trading volume of bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is reportedly up by 93% over the previous quarter, according to data provided by the exchange.

Through a tweet on its official account, CME revealed that rate of open interest (OI), the number of open bitcoin futures contracts, exceeded 2,400, a 58% increase over the previous quarter.

The CME Group is notably one of the largest exchanges in the world, and it launched bitcoin futures contracts late last year, on December 17, when most cryptocurrencies were close to their all-time highs. Before CME, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) launched BTC futures on December 10.

Notably, the price of bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, drop from nearly $20,000 to a low of little under $6,000 after bitcoin futures started trading, which led some to believe they were behind the cryptocurrency’s drop.

As covered, Fundstrat analyst Tom Lee, a well-known bitcoin bull, argued bitcoin futures were to blame for the crypto market’s “gut-wrenching” drop, as it also sees “dramatic price changes around CBOE futures expirations.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has earlier this year also published a report pointing the same way, arguing that the “rapid run-up and subsequent all in the price” after bitcoin futures trading started “does not appear to be a coincidence.”

Nevertheless, various financial giants showed interest in the financial product. As CryptoGlobe reported Goldman Sachs already offers the publicly-traded derivatives, but is looking to offer even more to its clients.

UK-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinfloor has also launched physically settled bitcoin futures contracts back in April of this year. Being physically settled means they’re settled in the underlying asset, bitcoin, when they expire.