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Topic: [2019-09-05] Fewer People Are Sending Bitcoin to Largest Crypto Exchanges (Read 337 times)

legendary
Activity: 2170
Merit: 1427
I personally don't use inflow/outflow since we already have volume as an indicator on whether or not the buy side or sell side is winning in every candle. This is the most basic indicator to see if there is really a massive selling going on. But you are right the indicator you have mentioned only tells that there is still a considerable amount of hodling going on. Plus it's obvious why there is no considerable amount of money entering in the market, we are neither in a bullish nor bearish market as we are in a consolidation stage and really this is not the most appealing time to buy more position if you are looking for value for your money.

Volume is quite a tricky indicator in my opinion. Even on the more reputable exchanges (i.e. Bitstamp, Coinbase, Kraken) there is clear wash trading happening. Whales tend to legitimately sell or buy x amount of coins, then after that sell or buy into their own orders to even out the ratio between buys and sells to make it appear there is no specific sentiment bias.

The fact that more coins are being deposited on an exchange than withdrawn is more telling. People are selling and/or are preparing to sell.
hero member
Activity: 1806
Merit: 672
I found this useful site that shows you how much capital inflow/outflow there was; https://www.tokenanalyst.io/exchange/BTC/Bitstamp

In the last couple of months the inflow (which means how many coins people sent to Bitstamp) has consistently been higher than what people withdrew. This pretty much shows that while perhaps fewer people are sending coins to an exchange, the actual amounts sent to Bitstamp are large enough to dwarf those who withdraw their coins.

It basically means that smart money is selling and not buying, which explains why we are trending down. Exchanges such as Bitmex and Bitfinex experienced more outflow than inflow, but that's not surprising either given their problems.

There is also and inflow/outflow indicator in the charts of tradingview but the catch is you have to sign up and create an account to use it because it's not one of those basic indicators. I personally don't use inflow/outflow since we already have volume as an indicator on whether or not the buy side or sell side is winning in every candle. This is the most basic indicator to see if there is really a massive selling going on. But you are right the indicator you have mentioned only tells that there is still a considerable amount of hodling going on. Plus it's obvious why there is no considerable amount of money entering in the market, we are neither in a bullish nor bearish market as we are in a consolidation stage and really this is not the most appealing time to buy more position if you are looking for value for your money.
legendary
Activity: 2170
Merit: 1427
I found this useful site that shows you how much capital inflow/outflow there was; https://www.tokenanalyst.io/exchange/BTC/Bitstamp

In the last couple of months the inflow (which means how many coins people sent to Bitstamp) has consistently been higher than what people withdrew. This pretty much shows that while perhaps fewer people are sending coins to an exchange, the actual amounts sent to Bitstamp are large enough to dwarf those who withdraw their coins.

It basically means that smart money is selling and not buying, which explains why we are trending down. Exchanges such as Bitmex and Bitfinex experienced more outflow than inflow, but that's not surprising either given their problems.
full member
Activity: 602
Merit: 100
It's not suprising when we all know that 2018 was the year where everyone got hit with the hardest crash in the  history of crypto. Or some people might be just continuing to hold their bitcoin and like their forgot about their existence and they will only withdraw it when we hit another new all time high. And another thing is that I think 2017 is record-breaking year for bitcoin transactions so we cannot assume that fewer people are sending bitcoin because it might be just like the normal which are the last  few years before 2017.
legendary
Activity: 3542
Merit: 1965
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I think a lot of this has to do with people rather hoarding their coins than having to risk trading them and losing money. After 2017 the price dropped with more than 80%, so people would rather keep their coins in their wallets than selling it at a lower price and hoping that the price would recover to prices larger than the price that they paid for it after the 2017 peak.  Roll Eyes

Some of these exchanges has also tightened their KYC requirements and this is also a huge pain in the ass, so people would rather prefer to avoid these services and going with less known exchanges without all this "red tape".  Wink
legendary
Activity: 1526
Merit: 1179
There is some interesting news from the cryptocurrency market. During the past 24 hours, the Bitcoin dominance has declined from 71.2% to 69.9%. This will give some breathing room for the alts, although I am not sure how long this phase is going to last. In the long term, I don't have much hope for the vast majority of the altcoins and tokens.
What's so interesting about that? Dominance isn't longer just a metric to measure where Bitcoin stands against altcoins, but a chart that can be traded where there are resistance and support levels to pay attention to.

As with everything in a bull market, the price goes up a bit, then corrects slightly, then make a higher high, correct, etc. Bitcoin's dominance is no exception in that regard-- the trend continues until the market dynamics hint at a reversal.

Overall, altcoins have never really added anything of value in terms of utility, but they have gone through the roof nonetheless. Once Bitcoin profits are taken, the most likely route are altcoins to maximize profits even further.
legendary
Activity: 2016
Merit: 1107
its a strange logics , if less people are sending coins to the top exchanges it doesn't mean that the interest is lower
it means exactly that - less unique addresses are connected to the known addresses of the "top exchanges"
there are many exchanges in the world , by the way and hope the researchers are aware that neither Bitfinex nor Bitstamp are top exchanges if we trust this chart:

https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

this chart includes Coinbase , by the way  but the figures are definitely off  

https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/volume/30d?c=e&t=b

and people tend to be conservative and many choose convenience vs privacy and security and reuse their addresses
there is no stats as to how many "old" addresses are being used and only tracking some , not all of the "new" addresses
cannot be a metrics to draw any conclusion from , too many unknowns
legendary
Activity: 3766
Merit: 1217
I think the shift of attention from major exchanges is a good thing. It would make it easier for smaller exchanges to grow, and in particular for DEXs to be used more. That would also mean that there may not be much sell orders as compared to previous times. A bull run might just be lurking.

The OP was hinting that trade volume across the exchanges were falling, and smaller exchanges and DEX sites are no exception. The declining prices of altcoins means that fewer and fewer traders are converting their BTC to altcoins or trading with them. Also, BTC exchange rates are rising and therefore less number of users are converting their crypto to USDT.

There is some interesting news from the cryptocurrency market. During the past 24 hours, the Bitcoin dominance has declined from 71.2% to 69.9%. This will give some breathing room for the alts, although I am not sure how long this phase is going to last. In the long term, I don't have much hope for the vast majority of the altcoins and tokens.
jr. member
Activity: 76
Merit: 4
I think the shift of attention from major exchanges is a good thing. It would make it easier for smaller exchanges to grow, and in particular for DEXs to be used more. That would also mean that there may not be much sell orders as compared to previous times. A bull run might just be lurking.
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 1724
Hihi, I live in Europe  Cheesy
The thing with the can find is, unfortunately, a bit more problematic.
As you can see coin radar shows a lot of 4.9% fees and sometimes even some pretty tempting 2% which, unfortunately, are not always true as you get one fee listed on the website and when you reach the ATM you will see another thing, I personally had a really bad experience with one of the biggest ATM operators around here so I won't use their ATMs ever again
Also on that website, I have close to 30 ATMs near me, in 3 countries, lol,  as I live near the border and only 2 of them show a fee lower than 5%.

Besides, I really don't think is about the AML and more about the cost of the ATM, like rent and others and their greed.

Well, at least the ones in Poland often do usually charge less than 5%, even after increases in fees of two major ATM operators.

AML of course is going to increase costs of doing business, KYC-capable ATMs are more expensive, and the operator has to pay an external company to deal with the KYC if they don't want to spend resources on doing it themselves.
legendary
Activity: 2912
Merit: 6403
Blackjack.fun
No, just no.
DEXs maybe but ATMs no, simply no. With 5% (if you're lucky) to 15% fees, nobody will sell more than a couple of mbits via those.
We're talking about people sending coins, that usually means for selling, so people who have bought them, hodl them for a while and that know how much they've paid in fees when they bought and how much those should be, not some noobs trying an atm for the first time.

Not true, you're just looking at countries with an oppressive AML regime making it more expensive to run Bitcoin ATMs. In Europe you can find ATMs selling/buying bitcoins for a 2-3% fee.

Hihi, I live in Europe  Cheesy
The thing with the can find is, unfortunately, a bit more problematic.
As you can see coin radar shows a lot of 4.9% fees and sometimes even some pretty tempting 2% which, unfortunately, are not always true as you get one fee listed on the website and when you reach the ATM you will see another thing, I personally had a really bad experience with one of the biggest ATM operators around here so I won't use their ATMs ever again
Also on that website, I have close to 30 ATMs near me, in 3 countries, lol,  as I live near the border and only 2 of them show a fee lower than 5%.

Besides, I really don't think is about the AML and more about the cost of the ATM, like rent and others and their greed.

legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 1724
No, just no.
DEXs maybe but ATMs no, simply no. With 5% (if you're lucky) to 15% fees, nobody will sell more than a couple of mbits via those.
We're talking about people sending coins, that usually means for selling, so people who have bought them, hodl them for a while and that know how much they've paid in fees when they bought and how much those should be, not some noobs trying an atm for the first time.

Not true, you're just looking at countries with an oppressive AML regime making it more expensive to run Bitcoin ATMs. In Europe you can find ATMs selling/buying bitcoins for a 2-3% fee.

legendary
Activity: 3668
Merit: 6382
Looking for campaign manager? Contact icopress!
Address reuse is still big and may not help in these statistics.
Always the number of trades is bigger in the FOMO period; clearly since then the things have cooled down greatly.
Binance was new and the speculators and arbitrage traders were still going there, setting up, using new addresses; now they're set and may not need new things.

OK, it's clearly a decrease. But I am sure that the numbers are not as accurate as they want us to believe; and to be fair, we have to compare the numbers FOMO against FOMO, cool down vs cool down. And clearly not jump to conclusions like there would be a decrease in interest.
hero member
Activity: 3150
Merit: 937
Not all bitcoin users are crypto traders with accounts in the top 5 cryptocurrency exchange platforms. Grin
It' not a secret that bitcoin adoption(and crypto adoption in general) are extremely slow.
This years BTC price pump from 4K to 11K USD was funded mostly by the retreat from altcoins.That's why the bitcoin dominance has increased.
legendary
Activity: 2268
Merit: 18748
DEXs maybe but ATMs no, simply no. With 5% (if you're lucky) to 15% fees, nobody will sell more than a couple of mbits via those.
Those were just examples. There are sites like LBC and Paxful, more and more OTC options, and so on. There is less dependence on centralized exchanges as these options grow. I would also rather pay a 5% ATM fee than give away my documents to any exchange. People really undervalue their privacy these days, or how horrendous identity theft can be.

they should have looked at metrics like new account registrations per month and fiat deposits, though this data is only available only to exchanges.
Registrations as metric is just as flawed as volumes and whatnot.
Any metric coming from an exchange will be flawed - they all artificially inflate their numbers to make them seem like a bigger player than they are. The numbers that we can chart accurately - such as hash rate or transactions per day - are showing a steady increase.

The exchange volumes are down because the altcoins are decimated and the users are no longer spending their Bitcoins to purchase worthless shitcoins.
It's been a while since I scrolled down on Coinmarketcap, but the volumes being trade for some altcoins are hilariously low. There are quite a few with daily volumes of only a few million, and there's one called Bytecoin at position 57 with a daily volume of only $13k. Glad to see a bunch of these worthless altcoins dying off.
legendary
Activity: 3766
Merit: 1217
Smart traders and investors have sold their altcoins to Bitcoin the moment critical support levels were broken, while the yolo get rich quick noobs think it's a good thing to show how tough they are by hodling them.

This is a mistake that I did earlier in 2013, when I was new to the cryptocurrency sector. I invested in a few shitcoins such as Quark, Ixcoin.etc and they went down by more than 90% in the next few months. I continued to hold on to them, hoping that one day they'll make a recovery and I will get my capital back. That didn't happened and eventually these coins became dormant.

What I had learned from these incidents is that if a smaller altcoin (i.e those outside the top-20 list in coinmarketcap) goes down continuously for more than 6 months, then there is no point in holding it. An exception can be made if it shows a stable trade volume (as it indicates that some demand is there). After 3-6 months, you need to sell the coin at whatever prices available, to prevent complete losses.
legendary
Activity: 1526
Merit: 1179
See how these guys are twisting the news. The exchange volumes are down because the altcoins are decimated and the users are no longer spending their Bitcoins to purchase worthless shitcoins. And in most cases those who had altcoins have already converted them to either BTC or USDT. In just 4 months, the altcoin market share (excluding the Bitcoin forks and the stablecoins such as USDT and USDC) have gone down from more than 50%, to less than 25%. No one expected such as steep fall in a very short duration.
The altcoin space seems so depressing that Binance came out and said that they expect Bitcoin's dominance to go back down to 60 or 50%. They make most of their money from altcoin trades, so this is very bad for them.

It's going to be interesting to see if altcoins will yet again face a massive selloff when Binance stops serving US residents next week. In this specific case I don't mind regulations to clean this space from all the garbage coins.

Smart traders and investors have sold their altcoins to Bitcoin the moment critical support levels were broken, while the yolo get rich quick noobs think it's a good thing to show how tough they are by hodling them.
legendary
Activity: 3766
Merit: 1217
See how these guys are twisting the news. The exchange volumes are down because the altcoins are decimated and the users are no longer spending their Bitcoins to purchase worthless shitcoins. And in most cases those who had altcoins have already converted them to either BTC or USDT. In just 4 months, the altcoin market share (excluding the Bitcoin forks and the stablecoins such as USDT and USDC) have gone down from more than 50%, to less than 25%. No one expected such as steep fall in a very short duration.

And since they are not investing/trading in shitcoins, there is no point in keeping the BTC in exchanges (as it makes the coins more vulnerable to hacks and robberies). So what happened is that they simply withdrew the BTC to the online or desktop wallets. Bitcoin is looking quite strong, especially after the bull run which took the exchange rates from $3K to $10K. The decimation of the shitcoins have nothing to do with Bitcoin. They went down owing to their own failures.
legendary
Activity: 2170
Merit: 1427
they should have looked at metrics like new account registrations per month and fiat deposits, though this data is only available only to exchanges.

Registrations as metric is just as flawed as volumes and whatnot. I can sign up to an exchange with thousands of accounts and not complete the KYC procedure, which means that the accounts are worthless. If I can do that, an exchange can too. Exchanges that display the number of registrations do not exclude non verified accounts for obvious reasons.

Interest can be measured in stablecoins with how they are the only fiat metric we can actually trace. If we look at USDC for example, they have reached an all time high this month in the number of stablecoins they have circulating. This means that capital is still entering crypto.
legendary
Activity: 3430
Merit: 3080
I'd be curious to see the numbers for Coinbase, who I think is more representative of what new or typical users are doing.

wouldn't we all, but Coinbase are unlikely to ever release anything but the most cooked/opaque figures they can slap together
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1483
Quote
To increase user loyalty and the amount of fees they can charge, a number of exchanges, such as Binance and Bitfinex, have rolled out or expanded availability of margin trading, letting users borrow funds to speculate. Binance began user testing its futures products this month, after allowing traders to lend out their funds to others in August.

Damn, I always said that those exchanges are going to turn into something far worse than BoA, DB or HSBC but I never thought it would be that fast.

bitfinex has been offering p2p margin lending since 2013 so it's not even a new development. it's also not the same as fractional reserve deposit lending at banks. the margin loans are collateralized and are for trading only. positions are liquidated if there is a risk that collateral can't cover the loan.

i still don't think the lending rates justify the risks, but compared to banks that are offering customers virtually nothing in interest, i can understand the temptation to lend.
legendary
Activity: 2912
Merit: 6403
Blackjack.fun
With the ongoing growth of buying and selling options like bitcoin ATMs and well functioning DEXs like BISQ, there are more options available and less need now than ever to use a centralized exchange.

No, just no.
DEXs maybe but ATMs no, simply no. With 5% (if you're lucky) to 15% fees, nobody will sell more than a couple of mbits via those.
We're talking about people sending coins, that usually means for selling, so people who have bought them, hodl them for a while and that know how much they've paid in fees when they bought and how much those should be, not some noobs trying an atm for the first time.

But, I'm starting to like the press section again, four topics I really liked from the news perspective lately..
And this one it's a piece of pretty good news, fewer people sending coins means fewer sellers or more hodlers keeping their coins in a damn personal wallet, not on some bank-like exchange.

That's what is actually happening, they should have looked at metrics like new account registrations per month and fiat deposits, though this data is only available only to exchanges.

I'm pretty sure all exchanges are overinflating every bit of data they can in order to look like they have billions of customers.

Quote
To increase user loyalty and the amount of fees they can charge, a number of exchanges, such as Binance and Bitfinex, have rolled out or expanded availability of margin trading, letting users borrow funds to speculate. Binance began user testing its futures products this month, after allowing traders to lend out their funds to others in August.

Damn, I always said that those exchanges are going to turn into something far worse than BoA, DB or HSBC but I never thought it would be that fast.


legendary
Activity: 3024
Merit: 2148

if less people are sending coins to exchanges, how does that equate to less new buyers? Roll Eyes

perhaps less coins are being sent to exchanges because that's what happens during bull markets---the ask side dries up. that's partly what drives the price up. the same thing happened in the run-up to the 2013 and 2017 bubbles.


That's what is actually happening, they should have looked at metrics like new account registrations per month and fiat deposits, though this data is only available only to exchanges. But they are right that interest in Bitcoin trading is lower now than it was a few months ago - other indicators like Google trends support it too. But there's nothing wrong about it, Bitcoin is currently in a "boring" sideways phase.

With the ongoing growth of buying and selling options like bitcoin ATMs and well functioning DEXs like BISQ, there are more options available and less need now than ever to use a centralized exchange.

I checked CMC and it shows that BISQ has $1.9 mil volume, and $1.7 mil is traded on XMR/BTC pair. Those numbers are really unimpressive compared to even small centralized exchanges.
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1196
STOP SNITCHIN'
it could also be that liquidity is leaving these particular exchanges.
It could be that liquidity is leaving all centralized exchanges. The number of exchange hacks and shady behavior is forever on the increase, even amongst the big exchanges. Coinbase selling customers' data, the Binance KYC hack, Bitfinex likely being insolvent, Bithumb hack, the list goes on. And the hacks of smaller exchanges are becoming too numerous to even keep track of. Perhaps investors are finally realizing the centralized exchanges are not safe. With the ongoing growth of buying and selling options like bitcoin ATMs and well functioning DEXs like BISQ, there are more options available and less need now than ever to use a centralized exchange.

Rather than this showing a "lack of interest", it might actually be demonstrating that users are becoming more interested in learning how to use it safely and privately.

I'd like to think that's true, but I doubt it. People are highly driven by convenience and ease of use -- that's not P2P and decentralized exchanges. I like Bisq, but hardly anyone is using it compared to centralized exchanges.

I'd be curious to see the numbers for Coinbase, who I think is more representative of what new or typical users are doing. Their wallets don't seem to be listed on Wallet Explorer, though.
legendary
Activity: 2268
Merit: 18748
it could also be that liquidity is leaving these particular exchanges.
It could be that liquidity is leaving all centralized exchanges. The number of exchange hacks and shady behavior is forever on the increase, even amongst the big exchanges. Coinbase selling customers' data, the Binance KYC hack, Bitfinex likely being insolvent, Bithumb hack, the list goes on. And the hacks of smaller exchanges are becoming too numerous to even keep track of. Perhaps investors are finally realizing the centralized exchanges are not safe. With the ongoing growth of buying and selling options like bitcoin ATMs and well functioning DEXs like BISQ, there are more options available and less need now than ever to use a centralized exchange.

Rather than this showing a "lack of interest", it might actually be demonstrating that users are becoming more interested in learning how to use it safely and privately.
hero member
Activity: 3038
Merit: 617


Fewer people are now trying to sell BTC nor buy altcoins using BTC, they could just be holding preparing for the next big thing. Its no surprising they are waiting for the price to take a big spike to more than $15k. If I have bought BTC while the price is $3k, I would really be holding onto it for it will be rarer than ever when finally the price slums all these sell walls.
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1483
Fewer people have been sending Bitcoin to major exchanges in recent months, according to crypto data tracker TokenAnalyst. After peaking in 2017, the number of unique addresses sending the world’s most-popular cryptocurrency to exchanges such as Binance and Bitfinex has been declining, it found.

The number of addresses sending the token to the Bitfinex trading platform is at a two-year low, while the amount on Malta-based Binance -- the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume -- dropped to early 2018 levels, according to TokenAnalyst.

That signals a “lack of retail interest in general currently in crypto,” said Sid Shekhar, co-founder of London-based TokenAnalyst. “If we go by the ‘Bitcoin as safe haven in times of recession’ narrative, the number of new users/buyers should actually be increasing.”

if less people are sending coins to exchanges, how does that equate to less new buyers? Roll Eyes

perhaps less coins are being sent to exchanges because that's what happens during bull markets---the ask side dries up. that's partly what drives the price up. the same thing happened in the run-up to the 2013 and 2017 bubbles.

it could also be that liquidity is leaving these particular exchanges. bitfinex is in a legal clusterfuck and binance is giving USA traders the boot in a week.

Other data point in the same direction. Bitcoin exchange trade volume in U.S. dollars is at its lowest point since May

that's what happens during sideways consolidations. get ready for a breakout soon!
hero member
Activity: 1680
Merit: 655
It's just the timing of the news on where the current market situation is now. Obviously if the market lacks activity in terms of price jumps then can't expect new people pouring in more money in the crypto market. It's like you are asking people to put more money on a market where it's future is still uncertain as of the moment. The article itself didn't gave any explanation why this is happening and went ahead with their point without explaining why it is happening. Such as shame to see that even Bloomberg is not telling all sides of the story in their news. For newbies reading this don't lose your hope because we are just in a market phase that lacks action as a result of big price movements we had earlier in this year.
sr. member
Activity: 1337
Merit: 288
0xbt
The notion that more people are trading cryptocurrencies? Well, it just may be wrong.

Fewer people have been sending Bitcoin to major exchanges in recent months, according to crypto data tracker TokenAnalyst. After peaking in 2017, the number of unique addresses sending the world’s most-popular cryptocurrency to exchanges such as Binance and Bitfinex has been declining, it found.

The number of addresses sending the token to the Bitfinex trading platform is at a two-year low, while the amount on Malta-based Binance -- the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume -- dropped to early 2018 levels, according to TokenAnalyst.

That signals a “lack of retail interest in general currently in crypto,” said Sid Shekhar, co-founder of London-based TokenAnalyst. “If we go by the ‘Bitcoin as safe haven in times of recession’ narrative, the number of new users/buyers should actually be increasing.”

Other data point in the same direction. Bitcoin exchange trade volume in U.S. dollars is at its lowest point since May, and has been trending down since peaking in 2017, according to Blockchain.com. Web traffic to Binance and Hong Kong-based Bitfinex is at a four-month low, according to tracker SimilarWeb.

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