Binance’s Wei Zhao Reveals OTC Trading Activity Boosted After Bitcoin’s Surge Above $5,000

Over-the-Counter (OTC) trading volume on Binance seems to have risen in April after the price increase experienced by Bitcoin earlier this month. The information was released by the CFO of the exchange, Wei Zhao, during a conversation with Decrypt.

Binance OTC Trading Volume Grows

According to Zhao, this could show that there is a reversal in the market, which has been affected by a bear trend since January 2018. At the same time, during the last year, trading volumes have been falling as well.

The OTC activity increased 66 percent compared than the last quarter. At the same time, it contributed to Binance’s $78 million in profits during the first quarter of this year.

Zhao commented to Decrypt:

“Last month we saw a lot more volume than, say, three months ago. This was mainly due to the increase in the price of Bitcoin and altcoins over the past few months. We’ve witnessed more trading activity – and demand.”

The CFO mentioned that Binance experienced this surge in OTC trading due to the 26 percent surge in the price of Bitcoin. At the same time, there have several mainstream media outlets that have been talking about the virtual currency industry, including Bitcoin.

Moreover, a large number of investors that worked for high-frequency trading firms jumped from traditional equity and started launching new trading platforms in the market.

At the same time, Zhao said that there is also a lower barrier to enter the virtual currency economy. That means that firms need smaller amounts of capital to start a trading business. Thus, entrepreneurs are encouraged to jump in.

At the time of writing this article, Bitcoin is being traded around $5,250 and it has a market capitalization of $92.58 billion. According to CoinMarketCap, Binance is the third largest digital asset in the market in terms of trading volume. In the last 24 hours, the exchange handled over $800 million.