Binance gears up for launch of ZEC/USDT perpetual contracts

Malta-based crypto-exchange Binance is all set to roll-out perpetual contracts for privacy coin Zcash [ZEC]. The ZEC/USDT perpetual contract will go live on 5 February at 8:00 AM [UTC]. This is the third privacy coin to be listed for perpetual contracts in less than a week, the first being Monero. XMR/USDT began trading on 2 February with leverage between 1-75x.

According to Binance’s official release, users on Binance’s platform will be able to select between 1-50x leverage. With the latest addition, the total number of perpetual contracts offered by Binance Futures now sits at 14.

This news comes a day after the cryptocurrency exchange announced the launch of DASH/USDT perpetual contracts, the trading of which is slated to go live on 4 February 8:00 AM [UTC]. Similar to Zcash’s perpetual contracts, DASH/USDT was also offered at a leverage of between 1-50x.

The perpetual contracts market has been exploding on Binance’s platform lately. The recently published Binance Research’s study stated that Binance Futures projected a staggering 85% month-on-month increase. Within this, $56 billion was traded across the platform’s perpetual contracts market. The figures peaked on 14 January, a time when more than $3.5 billion worth of perpetual contracts were traded, recording one of its highest single-day volumes.

Additionally, the research report revealed that Binance Futures in January recorded a daily average of $1.7 billion contracts traded.

Besides, BTC/USDT continued to dominate the perpetual contracts market which, according to Binance Research, remained the “most invested contract,” dominating 75% of the total Open Interest. It added,

“Collectively, open interest across altcoin perpetual markets has grown from under USDT 20 million on January 1st to USDT 75 million: an expansion by more than 250% in a single month.”