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In recent months, the market for bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency exchanges has notably turned in favor of four platforms in particular. Since July of last year, Binance, Bitfinex, Bittrex, and FTX have increased the combined balance of BTC under their wing by more than 24%.
The most recent report from the analysis firm Glassnode reflects the growth of the balances of these exchanges. In net numbers, between the four they entered more than 200,000 BTC, passing the total accumulated million.
More than half of those BTC are deposited on Binance and Bitfinex, clear market leaders in bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges. Between them, they accumulate about 800,000 bitcoins, reflects a graph in the report Week on Chain This week.
In the case of Binance, this platform has under its protection more than 20% of the BTC of the exchange sites, as we have previously reported in CriptoNoticias. A notable increase considering that between 2018 and 2020 they remained around 8% in that section, exposes Glassnode.
This behavior coincides with a large accumulation on the part of Binance, which has seen how its balance of BTC deposited by users it increased by about 315,000 BTC since 2020. A 120% increase in two years, the researchers point out.
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The increase in bitcoins deposited on Bitfinex is also notable: it has quadrupled between 2020 and today. From just under 60,000 BTC in November of that year to more than 250,000 for this March 7, 2022according to records of the same firm.
Bittrex, although it has also gained more BTC in that period, has done so in a much more modest way: its increase has been from about 92,000 to just over 127,000 BTC between November and the current date.
FTX, competitor on the rise
The other notable case within the exchange market is that of FTX. The platform focused on derivatives of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has burst into the industry with great force, with large injections of capital that have resulted in a sustained increase in its volumes.
According to figures from Glassnode, this exchange has gone from holding less than 1% of the total BTC on exchanges to around 4%. If we compare it with the more than 20% of the market dominated by Binance or Coinbase, it seems little, but the increase is impressive, the analysts point out.
“The total volume of BTC held by FTX is currently estimated at 103,200 BTC, which represents extraordinary growth from 3,000 BTC in March 2020. This represents a balance dominance increase of 0.8% in July 2020. 2021 to 4.0% today.”
Glassnode, in its Week on Chain report.
For the researchers of the analysis firm, the growth of FTX and Binance seems to give a clear message about the state of the market and where the interest of traders is in recent times: «use derivatives to hedge risk, instead of the BTC spot sale.”
To complete this scenario, the report states that both exchanges have clearly increased their dominance of the futures market (one of the types of derivatives that is traded).
“Binance now accounts for half of all futures traded volume. FTX has seen an equally impressive increase in volume dominance, rising 2.5x since December 2020 to now capture 9.2% of futures traded volume.”
Glassnode.
The rest of the exchanges see their bitcoin reserves fall
In contrast to the situation that the four aforementioned exchanges have experienced, others have only seen their reserves decrease. In fact, the accumulated balance between all the exchanges has gone down from 2020 to date: from about 3 million to about 2.5 million BTC in total.
Huobi leads this negative side of the exchange market, with a catastrophic drop: from more than 400,000 BTC that they had at the beginning of 2020, they now have less than 13,000.
“More than half of this balance decline has occurred following the Chinese government’s ban on Bitcoin mining and other restrictions on investor activity in May of last year,” notes Glassnode. Huobi, despite having been founded in China, is currently based in the Seychelles and has offices in the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong.
The report data also shows a significant drop in Coinbase’s balance sheet. The American Exchange Site He went from having more than 1 million bitcoins to his credit, to less than 700,000 today.
The figure keeps it with the highest market dominance (they have claimed about 12% of all cryptocurrencies on the market themselves in the past). However, the gap with Binance has closed significantly, as can be seen in data available within Glassnode, although they are not reflected in their report.
Landscape of exchanges in the theater of war
In the midst of chaos and the geopolitical scenario linked to the war between Russia and Ukraine, the flow of BTC associated with exchanges has not presented any notable changeas reported by Glassnode.
Analysts note that, despite “highly volatile macro and geopolitical events in recent weeks, net foreign exchange flow volumes also remained reasonably stable.” Yes, there was, they clarify, a slight bias in favor of the entry of coins to the exchanges. Mainly towards FTX and Bitfinex.
Despite this behavior, with a slight tendency towards speculation within exchanges, the researchers they conclude that these are low volumes. Especially considering “the current magnitude of market uncertainty.”
During the last few weeks, the price of bitcoin has reacted untidily to events. At times, it seems to benefit from the global context, although in other instances it looks weak in the market.
Constantly traded in a band between $38,000 and $43,000 in recent weeksthe leading cryptocurrency has encountered stiff resistance in the $45,000 zone so far this year.