Was dabbling into going long 1 (all of them 1) BTC Futures at Interactive brokers and the margin requirement is $115,294? That's over 300% for a long position? Where I can only lose 100% Beats me. No wonder volume is low... What am I missing here?
Try the micro BTC contract for lower margin requirement. Higher volume than bitcoin futures, but low volume generally speaking.
Think something is wrong there. TradeStation is $73,227 for big (5 coin) contract and $1463 for the micro (which is 1/10th size of 1 coin)
If you really want to get your feet wet in crypto, go buy some coin for 50$ with a credit card and trade on crypto native exchanges. CME and Bakkt are a dumpster fire
even the micro BTC futures volume is not fantastic. look at micro BTC futures bid - offer spread. it can be 10 to 30 ticks wide. other more liquid futures bid offer spread is around 1 to 2 ticks wide. perhaps time for CME to make the micro BTC tick size coarser. if the tick size is made coarser by 10 times, then micro BTC futures bid offer spread will improve drastically to 1 to 3 ticks wide.
it is a matter of trust. For example, I would not put our client money on crypto native exchange. We are algo shop and volatility is great on crypto, but CME volume is anemic. $50-few K for fun is no big deal of Course but why even bother???