We’re starting to see signs of volume returning to the market, with Binance volume firmly cementing its position as the top exchange! Blockchain Transparency Institute released its November rankings in terms of exchanges and Binance came out at the top with a 24-hour volume of $1 billion. We’ve had quite an alt-coin run the last month, have you been profitable?
With more than 160,000 24-hour web users, Binance easily overtook OKEx, the second largest crypto exchange in the market, in all of the following: active users, volume, mobile volume, web visitors, and API volume.
While Binance had $1 billion in daily volume and 160,000 daily users, OKEx achieved $700 million in daily volume with 30,000 users.
The last two years has seen the rise in Initial Coin Offering (ICO) projects, vague listing fees, and high volumes of small market cap tokens. This has led to intense debate regarding exchanges.
Last month, Binance announced that they would donate all of the listing fees it receives from projects to charity. This was done to diffuse controversy over Binance’s listing fees and practices. Binance also did this in the hopes to demonstrate that crypto, with its transparency and efficiency, could be used to drive charitable events and initiatives. Binance has encouraged other exchanges to follow suit.
However, the Blockchain Transparency Institute team and its researchers have pointed out that many exchanges are still targeting low market-cap coins. The purpose of these moves are dubious at best, most likely done in the hope to manufacture fake volume and trading activity to increase hype via market data platforms like CoinMarketCap.
“We also found many of these exchanges to be preying on low market cap coins which are desperate for the recognition and volume of a top 10 or 25 exchange. In many of the crypto projects we spoke with, this also involves supplying the exchange with a large amount of tokens which are then used to massively inflate volume numbers on CMC, luring in prospective traders from other exchanges with much lower, but real volume,” Blockchain Transparency Institute’s team said.
They went further, stating that top exchanges have been requesting high listing fees, anywhere from 5 BTC to 60 BTC. However, they did note that in the months to come, efforts being spearheaded by Binance and South Korea’s Shinhan Bank-backed Gopax will result in less questionable practices over time, stating: “Our initial report on exchange volumes revealed many top 100 exchanges on Coinmarketcap using wash trading to gain a marketing advantage over their competitors. We found many of these exchanges gaining 80-90% of their referral web traffic from CMC alone. In our recent token project interviews, we have found this allows these exchanges to ask from 5 BTC all the way up to 60 BTC for listing fees.”
Throughout the last 24 months, Binance, OKEx, and Huobi have entrenched themselves as the three largest exchanges in the world. Bithumb and Upbit, two of the largest trading platforms in South Korea, have recently entered the top 10. Speculation as to why this is happening includes a significant increase in interest in cryptocurrencies, and the ability to buy Bitcoin with the Korean Won.
Choi Jung-Gu, the Fianancial Services Commission (FSC) commissioner stated that banks are allowed to work with cryptocurrency exchanges insofar as providing banking services. Approval from the FSC could lead to an increase in trading activity in the local market.
What do you think? Do you see the slow yet growing demand for cryptocurrency and think it’s bullish? We know Bakkt is coming soon. Have you been positioning yourself? Let us know on our Facebook page!
