According to a study, cryptocurrency exchange platforms are pushing unreliable numbers. The
analysis of 157 crypto exchanges finds that 51% of the daily bitcoin trading volume being reported is likely bogus.
Small clue with which we are familiar in the crypto, the wash trading (for those who do not know what it is:
Wash trade). Nothing new, it happens on large platforms like
Binance,
Huobi, and many others that falsely signal their liquidity to push up the numbers. Especially with the exchanges not regulated.
But hey! The same is done IRL with the manipulation of the markets. It can't even be denied since that's why some have procedures, like the STPF. so...
I'm not even sure it's something considered illegal in all countries.
Something to consider, there is no universal method to define volumes accurately. Even companies like Coingecko or Coimartcap only use estimates (both true and false). That means that it is to be taken with a grain of salt. However, the math does not lie and statistics can be useful
The main findings:
More than half of all reported trading volume is likely to be fake or non-economic. Forbes estimates the global daily bitcoin volume for the industry was $128 billion on June 14. That is 51% less than the $262 billion one would get by taking the sum of self-reported volume from multiple sources.
Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin, continues to be a dominant player in the crypto trading economy, especially when it comes to trades against bitcoin. Its current market capitalization is $68 billion, despite questions about its reserves.
In terms of how much bitcoin activity takes place at these firms, 21 crypto exchanges generate $1 billion or more in daily trading activity, while the next 33 exchanges had volume between $200 million and $999 million across all contract types, spot, futures and perpetuals. Perpetual futures, or perpetual swaps as they are also known, are futures contracts that don’t require investors to roll over their positions. Binance is the clear leader, with a 27% market share, followed by FTX. Looking only at spot bitcoin, the top position is shared by Binance, FTX, and OKX. Chicago-based CME Group is the market leader in bitcoin futures trading.
The biggest problem areas regarding fake volume are firms that tout big volume but operate with little or no regulatory oversight that would make their figures more credible, notably Binance, MEXC Global and Bybit. Altogether, the lesser regulated exchanges in our study account for approximately $89 billion of the true volume (they claim $217 billion).
The creation of new trading assets and products such as stablecoins and perpetual futures adds complications for national authorities seeking to regulate crypto markets. Major U.S. exchanges hardly utilize these instruments or contracts in any of their trading. However, offshore exchanges make significant use of them as ways to synthetically create U.S. dollar liquidity on their platforms (they cannot get U.S. bank accounts).
In the Western world and particularly in the U.S., it is tempting to think of bitcoin only trading against either the U.S. dollar or the euro and British pound. But some of the largest trading pair activity occurs against fiat currencies like the Japanese yen and Korean won and against major stablecoins like Binance U.S. dollar and the USD coin.
573 million people visit crypto exchange websites on a monthly basis
.