Coin Metric assessed the BTC/USD trading volume in nine US exchange houses. Coinbase handles an amount of between 300 BTC and 2,000 BTC per hour.

According to a recent report, the cryptocurrency market tracking firm Coin Metric said that most of the exchange volume of the Bitcoin/dollar pair in US exchange houses is mainly moved through four companies.

The study, which was published during the week of September 13th, assessed the way in which the volume of Bitcoin trading is distributed among exchange houses, based on data since April 1st, 2019, until its publication on September 10th. As stated by the analysts, the concentration of trade in a single exchange can represent risks to the market given that it fails, as occurred in the past with Mt Gox. Regarding that case, the exchange house concentrated 70% of the whole Bitcoin trading volume.

The assessment was made of the volumes of Bitcoin trading against the US dollar in nine exchange houses in the United States. The results reveal that most of the transactions are concentrated in Coinbase, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, and Kraken. It was observed that these four companies handle 85% of the total volume of the markets evaluated.

Coinbase, the exchange house with the highest total exchange volume in the North American country, showed figures of up to 32% of the total trade in bitcoins against dollars in the period under review. Additionally, the report indicates that the exchange house increased its operations in the aforementioned market by 8%, to the detriment of Bitfinex, whose share fell from 25% to 19%. This loss of the Bitfinex market volume has its explanation in the recent legal problems faced in the United States.

In the period studied, the average Bitcoin exchange volume per hour, through Coinbase, ranges between 300 BTC and 2,000 BTC. According to the report, the rest of the exchange houses evaluated for the study, including Gemini, itBit and Bittrex, have volumes lower than 10%, a magnitude that is much smaller than that shown by Coinbase.

As a consequence of current regulatory pressures, Coin Metric analysts believe that Coinbase might concentrate an even larger portion of the BTC-USD market as more exchange houses limit access to US-based traders. This situation would imply a risk of concentrating Bitcoin trading, as previously explained.

It should be remembered that the Asian Binance, the largest cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency exchange house by volume traded, announced in June this year that it would stop providing its service to the US market through its main platform Binance.com. The company was compelled to create a new platform that complied with the regulations in force in the United States so that the users of that country could receive their service.

In order to ensure the stability of the Bitcoin market, it is required to have a balanced distribution of the trading volume of the main cryptocurrency against that of the dollar. The idea is that more exchange houses are available for cryptocurrency holders in both the United States and the rest of the world.

By Willmen Blanco

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