'Sleepy July': K33 says bitcoin spot volume on track for weakest month since late 2023

July's slow pace continued over the past week, with bitcoin (BTC) falling 3% to $63,300 while remaining in a narrow consolidation range, according to research and brokerage firm K33. The asset traded above $64,000 on Wednesday, per The Block’s BTC price page. 

Muted activity across spot and derivatives markets has left July on track to record the lowest average daily bitcoin spot trading volume since November 2023, K33 Head of Research Vetle Lunde wrote in a Tuesday report. 

Average daily spot volume across exchanges tracked by K33 reached $2.2 billion for the month, while the seven-day average stood at $2.1 billion, down 4% from the previous week.

Derivatives activity remains subdued

Trading activity across derivatives markets also remained muted, Lunde said. CME bitcoin open interest stayed near levels not seen since 2023, while perpetual futures open interest held around 300,000 BTC.

CME open interest ranged between 95,000 BTC and 102,000 BTC over the past week, standing at 100,025 BTC ahead of the July futures expiry. Annualized bitcoin futures basis drifted to just below 5%, while August futures traded at a 0.4% premium to July contracts.

Perpetual futures activity changed little during the week, with total futures and perpetual open interest at $32.1 billion, or 508,000 BTC, down 2.1% over the past seven days. Funding rates largely remained between 5% and 7%, briefly approaching 0% during several trading intervals.

Options positioning also shifted modestly. The one-month 25-delta skew fell to 6.28 on July 23, its lowest level in six months, before returning to double digits following bitcoin's recent pullback.

BitMEX winddown caps long decline

K33 also highlighted the planned shutdown of BitMEX after 11 years, marking the closure of one of crypto's most influential derivatives exchanges.

The exchange, which popularized perpetual swaps, accounted for about 40% of offshore bitcoin derivatives open interest at the start of 2020. Following the U.S. Department of Justice's action in October 2020, its share fell to 11% by year-end before declining to 0.6% in the first half of 2026, according to the firm.

At its peak on May 12, 2020, BitMEX's rolling 365-day inverse perpetual trading volume exceeded $1 trillion, generating an estimated $500 million in annual revenue under a conservative 0.05% fee assumption, the report said. Its insurance fund also grew to more than 36,000 BTC before being reduced to 3,600 BTC in November 2025.

BitMEX follows similar shutdown announcements from BitMart and AscendEX, with K33 citing persistently weak trading volumes and shrinking revenues as common factors.

The consolidation comes ahead of Wednesday's Federal Reserve rate decision, with markets pricing a 66.3% chance the central bank holds rates and a 33.7% chance of a 25-basis-point hike, according to K33.