Cryptocurrency Volumes Drop Further in October 2020

Cryptocurrency exchanges went through another fall in October volumes, according to a new report by Cryptocompare.

CryptoCompare today published its monthly Exchange Review, which offers widely-quoted insights into the cryptocurrency exchange industry as well as changes to exchanges’ metrics that make up the data provider’s price indices.

Key findings from the October review show that volume on crypto derivatives exchanges fell by 2.5 percent compared to the previous month. In October, the monthly volume hit $619 billion relative to $635 billion in September, which was down by more than 17 percent from a record $712 billion set back in August 2020.

The bulk of crypto trading happened on exchanges considered by Cryptocompare as Top-Tier, having commanded $346 billion or 62 percent of total volume. However, total turnover at these exchanges decreased 19.3 percent in October.

Trading volumes at what CryptoCompare calls ‘Lower-Tier’ exchanges also dropped to $211 billion, down 15 percent on a monthly basis from $248 billion in September.

Binance was the largest derivatives exchange in October by monthly trading volume with $164.8 billion (up 0.02 percent). Huobi (down 5 percent), OKEx (down 19.16 percent) and BitMEX (up 3.41 percent) followed with $148.4 billion, $125.8 billion and $58.3 billion traded respectively.

At the end of October, OKEx had the highest open interest across all derivatives products at $1.56 billion. This was followed by Binance ($1.49 billion), Huobi ($1.07 billion) and BitMEX ($0.83 billion).

Options Volumes on CME Drop

After having experienced a historic surge in activity, the decline may be the result of a lull in investor interest during the month in review as top platforms also experienced a notable drop in their monthly turnover.

Crypto spot volumes also dropped by 18 percent from $676 billion in September to $577 billion in October, explains the London-based data analytics firm.

Binance was the largest spot exchange by volume, leading with $75 billion (down 33 percent since September). This was followed by Huobi Global trading $41 billion (down 31.4 percent), while OKEx traded $32 billion (down 42 percent). Exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, and Liquid followed with $11.3 billion (down 17.5 percent), $6.5 billion (down 13.0 percent) and $6.1 billion (down 4.3 percent).

Continuing with the overall downtrend, trading of options contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which focuses on institutional investors, fell 23 percent in October with 3,747contracts traded within the month.

As for previous editions, CryptoCompare’s report includes exchange trade data, news highlights, a market segmentation analysis and metrics of Bitcoin trades against both fiat and stablecoins.