CryptoCompare Exchange Review Spells Great News For The Bitcoin Industry

CryptoCompare Exchange Review Spells Great News For The Crypto Industry

CryptoCompare's monthly Exchange Reviews are a useful asset in every crypto investor's arsenal, as they often show the real situation in the industry. They take note of the biggest changes in the space and allow investors to prepare for what is to come. Some even find them critical for their decision-making process, and each review is greeted with excitement and anticipation.

With that being said, the latest review — the one concerning the situation in March 2019 — was even more anticipated than usual ones. This is hardly a surprise, considering the fact that this March was of critical importance for the industry. A 14-month bear market finally let go, and the crypto winter seems to finally be a thing of the past.

With things finally looking up again, many were more than interested in CryptoCompare's report, and numerous investors around the world are already drawing their own conclusions from it. The report itself did not disappoint, as it brought the truly positive news for the first time in over a year.

CryptoCompare Exchange Review For March 2019

The Review starts off the same as always — with an explanation of its goal, which is to capture the key developments in the crypto exchange market, as well as any changes to the exchanges themselves. All of this comes with the goal of helping the investors monitor the market with more precision, and base their investment decisions on the top quality data.

However, the review quickly moves towards the ‘good stuff,' with their excessive summary of the market behavior in March.

One of the most important developments includes the large growth of Total Spot Volumes, which surged by 47.5%. The majority of trading volume was noticed in Malta-based exchanges, which is of no surprise considering the country's difficult financial situation. Its citizens had no alternative apart from turning to cryptocurrencies, which proved to be a successful tool in fighting inflation. As a result, the trading volume surged by 56% compared to the situation in February 2019.

Following Malta-registered exchanges, the most trading volume was noticed in exchanges registered in Hong Kong, with a surge of 54% and South Korea, where the trading volume went up by 21%.

Another noteworthy development is that Bitcoin (BTC) trading into Tether (USDT) went up to 8.9 million BTC. This represents a 43% increase since the situation in February. Not only that, but 81.7% of total Bitcoin trading volume included exchange into either stablecoins or fiat currencies, while in February, the amount was 11.7% lower.

There are also indications that USDT still remains the most used stablecoin, while followed by PAX, USDC, and TUSD. As for the BTC trade into other fiat currencies, it is mostly decreasing, except in the case of KRW, which went up by 41%.

However, crypto-to-crypto trade went up significantly, with the exchanges that offer only crypto pairs seeing a 70% growth in activity since February. That places around 82% of total crypto activity at crypto-to-crypto exchanges, which is an 11% growth from the situation recorded in February of this year.

However, there was another factor that differentiated the popularity of various exchanges, and those are the taker fees. According to the report, those exchanges that charge taker fees represented around 84% of the total trading volume in March. On the other hand, the exchanges that implement TFM (trans-fee mining) represented only around 14%.

As for derivatives trading, OKEx traded the highest, with around $1.5 billion, which accounts for swaps and futures alike. In the second place, there was Bitflyer Lightning, with $1.14 billion, while BitMEX holds the third spot with only $645 million.

In terms of regulated Bitcoin derivatives, the market is still dominated by CME by far, with Grayscale's GBTC in the second place, and then followed by CBOE's Bitcoin futures.

As for fiat-to-crypto exchanges, Bithumb holds the top spot, with a total volume of $32 billion in March alone, followed by Upbit, and then Bitfinex.

Decentralized exchanges have seen a big shift as well, with Ethermium being the busiest one in March, with a trading volume of $336 million, which is a 42% increase since February. It was followed by OpenLedger, which has seen a volume increase of 17%, to $31.4 million, and then finally WavesDEX, which saw a massive, 55% large decrease in volume, which took it from $69 million to only $31 million.

The Market Recovery Is Underway

For additional information, the full report can be seen here. However, it is clear that March has brought a massive boost in nearly all areas of crypto trading, which is a significant improvement for the entire crypto industry. It also shows that the investors are returning with new optimism and that there is profit to be made.

However, even with all that happened in March, the real boost in prices came in the early days of April. Of course, the increased activity on April 1st is somewhat explained by this report. However, the rest of April saw quite a lot of activity as well. As a result, investors are already looking forward to seeing the next month's report. So far, the prices have seen a massive boost, then a strong correction, followed by new growth that is currently taking place.

With the crypto recovery currently taking place, and the prices continuing on their way up, with the addition of various new events — the future of the crypto market seems brighter than ever.