CoinMarketCap CTO Responds to BitWise Crypto Exchange Report, Calls Study a “Slippery Slope”

Last month, the cryptocurrency industry was surprised to see a new report come out from research accumulated by Bitwise Asset Management. The report, containing 227 slides, had been presented to the SEC with the Bitcoin ETF proposal, included information regarding CoinMarketCap that stated their reported data was “fake and/or non-economic.”

CoinMarketCap aggregates data on the cryptocurrency industry, and many reports have been publicizing the falsehoods on the platform.

When concerns started to plague the rest of the industry, CMC agreed to “add a suite of new metrics” that would help users to get a more in-depth look at both cryptocurrency and of exchanges. However, it is clear that the continued negativity towards the platform has led CTO Mauvis Ledford to hit back against Bitwise.

When Ledford was interviewed by CoinSpeaker, he said that the report created quite a “slippery slope,” and he questioned how valid the “methodology” was of the report. He referenced the “real” and “fake” volumes that Bitwise classified and said that their “accuracy” could ultimately not be verified.

He added that his brand “respect[s]” Bitwise, but there was no proof that the information Bitwise collected came from third parties, and that there was no information about the timeframe that Bitwise performed the research.

Ledford believes that any “verified” exchange can easily lose their verification like the ones that have already been considered “bad.” Bitwise had said that there are only 10 exchanges to offer, what they believe are, “real volumes.” Those 10 exchanges are Coinbase Pro, Bittrex, Binance, bitFlyer, Gemini, Poloniex, Kraken, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, and itBit.

To defend the “fake volumes,” Ledford explained that they are a regularity with cryptocurrency exchanges, adding that it can be credited to the fact that the “industry is evolving.” Furthermore, to actually handle the issues, there will need to be “multi-faceted” tools created to solve them.

The community was in uproar, as more and more people have called for exchanges with fake reported volumes to be removed. The CTO said that CMC plans to give users access to better tools with the required context established, before any assumptions are made about “fake” and “real” exchanges.

Of the new metrics planned for CMC, exchange data will be viewable based on liquidity and wallet storage. Ledford implied that data will not be removed, but more tools will be added:

“to create custom views and filter through data in a way that is most relevant to each user.”

New metrics involving the evaluations of liquidity, wallet storage, and other information apart from volume are planned, but the platform is still developing the protocols and tools to do so.

If nothing else, Mauvis Ledford assured users that the platform does not intend to be a “censor” of the industry but will offer better parameters to ensure that users see the data in the context that it is meant to be seen. From there, users can get a better understanding of the information that they need to know and create their own conclusion on what it means.

Concluding the interview, the CTO reiterated that CMC does not intend to censor information but will help with the filtering to ensure that users can “make their own informed decisions.”