Spot Markets Target Top-Tier Exchanges While Derivatives Gain Market Share

CryptoCompare’s cryptocurrency Exchange Review for July 2020 has recently been published, giving an insight into last month’s exchange volume data and trends.

Key points of interest include a flippening of sorts in the spot market, with the majority of volume now being traded on top-tier rather than lower-tier exchanges, and derivatives continuing to make ground on spot markets as they gain overall market share.

As Cointelegraph reported, CryptoCompare also publishes an Exchange Benchmark, which ranks more than 165 global spot exchanges. Exchanges which are graded AA–B are considered top-tier, while those graded C–E are considered lower-tier.

In July, top-tier exchanges saw an increase in trading volume of over 42%, to $334 billion. Lower-tier exchanges however saw a comparable drop of 38% to $224 billion. Top-tier exchanges now represent 60% of the total volume, effectively reversing the position in June.

Spot volume on top-tier exchanges saw a new high for the year on July 27, with $27.1 billion being traded.

July 27 also saw derivatives trading hit its highest daily volume ($46.91 billion) since the market crash in March, and saw Deribit’s daily options volume set a new all-time high ($585 million), almost tripling the previous record ($196 million).

Derivatives volumes increased 13.2% in July to $445 billion, while spot volumes decreased by 0.5% to $639 billion. This has resulted in derivatives gaining a three-point overall market share increase to 41%.

Despite these relative gains in July market share, figures for both spot and derivatives volumes are still down from previously in the year, following a significant drop-off in June.