Over $600 Billion in Cryptocurrencies Traded in May
Cryptocurrency trading volume topped $600 billion in May, a massive amount to be sure, but far less than April volume.
Cryptocurrency exchange tracker CoinMarketCap reported Wednesday that more than $606 billion in 1,633 different cryptocurrencies changed hands in May. The total is less than half the $1.4 trillion in more than 1,500 cryptocurrencies traded in April.
While April was a bullish month for cryptotraders, May was decidedly bearish.
The most heavily traded was Bitcoin, with a 30-day volume of $184.31 billion, followed by Tether with a volume of $92.65 billion and Ethereum with a volume of $76.54 billion.
For an interesting contrast in the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin.com posted a list of the top 10 exchanges in August 2016, along with their trading volume for a 24-hour period. Of those, eight have been replaced on the list. Here are 2016’s top three exchanges, along with daily volume:
- Okcoin.cn: $440.53 million
- BtcTrade: $218.94 million
- Huobi: $165.25 million
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As of yesterday, Okcoin.cn ranked 188th, BtcTrade ranked 54th and Huobi ranked fourth. Two of 2016’s top exchanges are defunct.
The top four exchanges today and their 24-hour trading volumes all top $1 billion:
- BitMEX: $2.49 billion
- Binance: $1.56 billion
- OKEx: $1.48 billion
- Huobi: $1.13 billion
Cryptocurrencies, led by Bitcoin, had a massive price run-up in 2017, and that accounts for a boom in total daily trading volume from just over $1 billion in 2016 to $10.6 billion today. In 2016 there were 105 cryptocurrency exchanges, compared to 213 today.
Bitcoin June futures on the Cboe traded down about 1.9% in the noon hour Wednesday to $7,355, after opening at $7,495 this morning. Since futures trading began in March, the contracts have dropped by a third.
Nymex Bitcoin futures have lost more than 51% since futures trading began in January.
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Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.
He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.
