Despite quarterly growth in total trading volume, the volume of BTC fell by 11%. On March 12th, the day of the collapse of the cryptocurrency market, Bitfinex had 40% of the volume.
In the first quarter of 2020, the activity in the major cryptocurrency exchanges indicates a significant increase in trading volume, compared to that of the last quarter of 2019.
According to data from Coingecko, there was an increase of 61% in trading volumes in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the last quarter of 2019. An analysis of the activity in Binance, one of the most popular exchanges, allows seeing the said volume increase. In the last quarter of 2019, the highest daily trading volume was USD 3.6 billion on October 26th, whilst the highest volume in the first quarter of 2020 was USD 6.2 billion.
Using information from Coingecko and CryptoCompare, The Block team produced a graph that makes it easier to see the increase in trading volumes in various exchanges.
The chart only takes into account Bitcoin’s trading volume in 3-month periods and the average price of the cryptocurrency. In this way, it is possible to see that the average volume of the last quarter of 2019 was USD 96 billion, and the average price of BTC was USD 7,987. In the first quarter of 2020, the average volume reached up to USD 154 billion, which represents an increase of 61% of the trading volume in the quarter, whilst the average price of BTC reached USD 8,311.
Auspicious March
The CryptoCompare team recently published a study showing the activity of the exchanges in March. It took into account the data from Binance, OKEX, Coinbase, Bitfinex, Kraken, Bitstamp, and Gemini. It is important to know that four of the aforementioned exchanges concentrated 85% of Bitcoin’s trading volume in 2019.
The study highlights a graph that shows the total monthly volume of those exchanges from July 2017 to March 2020, as well as the aforementioned information. The first quarter of 2020 has had higher volumes, compared to the last quarter of 2019. However, some trading volumes in March 2020 were the same as others in May 2019.
In March, one of the most important falls in the price of BTC in months occurred. The panic that the event caused affected the transactions in the exchanges. For example, Bitfinex registered on March 12th USD 11.8 million in exchanges, in periods of minutes. Binance traded USD 63 billion in March, which represents a 19% increase, compared to February.
The data collected up to this point allow establishing that the trading volume at the exchanges increased by 61% between the last quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. Besides, Bitfinex had 40% of the exchanges of March 12th and Bitcoin’s trading volume in the first quarter of 2020 fell by 11%, compared to that of the last quarter of 2019.
Besides, the cryptocurrency market capitalization fell by around USD 25 billion, since Bitcoin was not the only active cryptocurrency at the exchanges in March. According to data from Capital.com, Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Ethereum (ETH), Tron (TRX), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) were the top 5 most traded cryptocurrencies during the month.
By Alexander Salazar
