The three-month bitcoin (BTC) futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), widely considered a proxy for institutional activity, are drawing a premium over the the cryptocurrency's going spot market price for the first time since FTX went bust.

The renewed premium indicates that institutional activity is no longer concentrated on the short side. The CME futures fell into a record discount in mid-November as sophisticated traders took bearish bets to hedge against a deeper FTX-induced slide in the leading cryptocurrency.

(By Omkar Godbole)