With prices down and volatility taking a back seat in recent months, Bitcoin trading volumes across exchanges have hit new lows. Still, traded volume in terms of Bitcoins remains higher than that seen in 2017. But as market share across major exchanges continues to drop, Binance is one seeing growth.
Bitcoin traded volume witnessed a massive 55% drop in January and February of this year versus 2018 for the same period. Still, total Bitcoins traded already stands at more in the first two months of this year than that seen in all of 1Q17.
Overall, 2018 saw demand rise 45% versus 2017, with the last three quarters of 2018 finding an even footing (see chart).
Major exchanges though have hit new trading volume lows in Dollar terms. For the first time in almost 2-years, Coinbase, in part due to a short month, saw its Bitcoin traded volume fall below $1Bn last month (see chart).
Adding alcohol to the wound, Coinbase’s market share against major exchanges has also dropped from an average of 24% in 2017 to half that in 2018.
Binance hasn’t fared much better either seeing its total BTC/USDT volume drop to levels seen just before the exchange became the goto cryptocurrency trading hotspot (see chart).
Binance though has been able to capture valuable share against major exchanges now cornering over 50% of the market (see chart). This marks the third straight month in a row that Binance has seen its market share grow as Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini plateau.
Bitfinex market share also continues to slide after Tether-related controversy put a question mark around one of the oldest cryptocurrency operations (Diar, 22 October 2018). And while it still maintains over 20% of traded volume on the majors, it has been a steep drop from the 60% it once controlled.
With Bitcoin’s volatility down 82% versus the start of 2018, it’s unlikely that trading activity will gain much speed bringing back the sunshine exchanges basked in last year.
The “Crypto Winter” has now pushed Circle to seek an additional round of funding to the tune of $250Mn, The Information reports, having already raised as much to date (Diar, 5 November 2018).