For the first time ethereum has surpassed bitcoin
in trading volumes on US’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase.
According to the stock traded platform, ethereum
handled 26% of all trading volumes in Q2, up from 21%. Bitcoin handled 24%,
significantly down from 39% in Q1.
That suggests this might have been a fluke with eth
rising significantly in the second quarter after bitcoin had kind of locally
peaked at $64,000, hence the significant change in its volumes.
In more interesting data, institutional trading
volumes are beginning to dominate, up to $317 billion from $215 billion and a
magnitude higher than the $17 billion in Q2 2020.
For retail investors volumes reached $145 billion
from $120 billion and are significantly higher than the $11 billion in Q2 2020.
Institutional investors are also beginning to
overtake in ownership with $92 billion of the assets on the platform held by
them, up from $11 billion in Q2 2020.
For retail, they held $15 billion in assets in Q2
2020, and now hold $88 billion as of the latest quarter with institutional
investors taking over in Q4 2020.
Still there isn’t a huge gap between institutional
and retail ownership, while for trading volumes theres a $172 billion
difference.
So institutional investors clearly trade a lot
more, with it unclear what exactly this suggests except that both retail and
institutional investors have a somewhat equal amount of influence where basic
supply and demand is concerned.
Hence we continue to see volatility of 50% drops
and gains as retail panics or fomos in, with that perhaps influencing more
bitcoin’s medium to long term price.
Financial housing firms on the other hand probably
have more influence in the short term as they trade twice more than retail
investors.
Coinbase also said they now have
68 million total verified users, which is about 47 million more than can have a
whole bitcoin.
Retail Monthly Transacting Users (MTUs) grew to 8.8 million, up 44% from Q1 2021, with over 9,000 institutions who continue to deepen and broaden their activities in the cryptoeconomy and more than 160,000 ecosystem partners who are using our crypto tools and services to engage with their own customers.
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