Exchange market down in June as well

Bitcoin and Ethereum closed June at $19,908 and $1,070, down 37.4% and 44.9%, respectively. 

Exchange market in continuous decline

These are the largest monthly declines since February 2014 and March 2018, respectively. Spot and derivative volumes in crypto exchanges declined from the highs reached in May, dropping 15.2% to $4.16 trillion, the lowest figure recorded since January 2021. These are some figures from the latest report carried out by the CryptoCompare company.

Experts from the crypto company also point out that the market decline was evidenced by the significant compression of volumes on major international exchanges. Cryptocurrency trading volumes fell 27.5% to $1.41 trillion, the lowest figure recorded since December 2020. Meanwhile, derivatives trading volume, which accounts for about 66% of the market, fell 7% to $2.75 trillion. This was the lowest derivatives volume recorded since July 2021.

In the face of almost entirely negative numbers is the growth in June of spot trading of BTC in stablecoins. BTC/USDT trading increased by 24.3%. USDC regained its position as the second largest stablecoin, increasing 41.8% to 306k BTC traded. 

Meanwhile, monthly volumes of CME futures on BTC and ETH are down sharply, partly due to investors’ risk aversion. CME BTC futures contracts recorded the lowest volume traded since July 2021 at $29.3 billion. At the same time, volumes of ETH futures contracts fell 21.1% to $11.3 billion. 

Volumes of exchanges

In terms of individual exchanges and their weight in the overall market, the report indicates a significant increase in spot trading volume for the FTX exchange. While China’s Binance remains the dominant exchange with a 49.7% market share. However, FTX has become the leader in trading volume over the past two months (May and June), surpassing even Coinbase with about $71 billion volumes traded, compared to about $53 billion for the exchange founded by Brian Armstrong. AAx and OKX occupy the fourth and fifth largest exchanges, respectively.

FTX‘s great success, according to CryptoCompare analysts, also probably depends on the very low maker/taker fees compared to its competitors (FTX 0.02% | 0.07%, Coinbase

0.10% | 0.20%, Binance 0.10% | 0.10%).

“Moreover, its CEO and founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, has become a hugely popular and influential figure among the crypto community”,

states the report.

With reference to the derivatives market, Binance was the exchange with the highest derivatives trading volumes in June, trading $1.56 trillion (down 6.35% from May) followed by OKX ($458 billion, down 11.2%), Bybit ($357 billion, up 1.17%) and FTX ($281 billion, down 11.5%).