Halving Hype Drives Second-Strongest Spot Volume on Record

Pre-halving speculation has driven historic volumes of crypto trade, with April 30 producing the second-strongest single day for volume on record according to a report published by market data aggregator, CryptoCompare.

Notional volume for BTC options on Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or CME, also tagged a new record in recent days, with 202 contracts changing hands on May 5.

April 30 posts historic volume

$66.2 billion worth of crypto assets changed hands on April 30 as Bitcoin (BTC) rallied above $9,000 — comprising the second-largest daily volume behind the $75.9 billion in crypto assets traded during the historic March 13 crash.

CryptoCompare estimates that 73% of trade took place on what they specify as lower-tier exchanges, while $17.9 billion traded on, by their reckoning, top tier platforms.

The three-largest spot exchanges, Binance, OKEx, and Coinbase, represented 10.4% of total trade, hosting $3.6 billion and $2.5 billion in volume respectively. Coinbase ranked third with $818 million.

The dominance of Tether (USDT) on the markets has continued to extend, with USDT pairings representing 74% of all trade between Bitcoin and stablecoins or fiat currencies.

Volume between BTC and stablecoins or fiat currencies: CryptoCompare

Derivatives volumes retrace by one-quarter

The report finds that Binance was the only exchange to see growth in derivatives volume last month, following the unprecedented volume posted during March.

Binance’s monthly derivatives volume grew 11.6% to post $108 billion, overtaking long-time market leader BitMEX — which hosted $69.3 billion in trade amid a 40% volume drop.

Huobi and OKEx topped the volume rankings during April with $133 billion and $113 billion in trade despite monthly trade shrinking by 10.5% and 31.4% respectively. Institutional platform CME saw an 11.1% drop in trade, posting $4.5 in volume last month.

Compared to March, combined derivatives volume fell 25% totaling $456 billion. The share of total crypto trade also fell from 30% to 27%.