US Crypto Trading Volume Down 80% Since Mid-March
Coinbase still maintains the highest US trading volumes with close to 50% of the market share, but it’s a far cry from where the exchange once was
DUSAN ZIDAR/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
Crypto trading volume in the US is down more than 80% in less than 3 weeks.
US trading volumes peaked to four-month highs in mid-March as the banking crisis intensified and investors looked to move away from traditional finance, but traders have since pulled back.
On March 14, US exchanges recorded $3,223,723,564 in trading volume. On April 2, by contrast, exchanges facilitated a mere $621,853,315 in crypto trades, according to data from crypto research firm Kaiko.
The CFTC sued Binance on March 27. Since that time, volumes on the foreign exchange have dropped dramatically. Binance lost 16% of its global market share in the first quarter of the year, Kaiko analysts said.
“We still need a bit more time to observe a long-term trend as the lawsuit is a recent event. Also, the sharp drop in volumes happened over the weekend,” said Clara Medalie, Kaiko’s head of research.
Coinbase maintains the highest US trading volumes with close to 50% of the market share, but it is a far cry from where the exchange once was. During the first quarter of the year, Coinbase’s market share dropped from an average of 60% a week to just 49% weekly.
Binance.US managed to take over some of Coinbase’s losses, even amid the CFTC lawsuit. Binance.US’ market share has tripled from 8% to more than 24%.
Binance isn’t the only narrative that is shifting trading patterns though, Medalie said. US exchanges have faced liquidity challenges with the loss of banks Silvergate and Signature. This has made it more difficult to deploy capital over the weekend, as potentially reflected in recent volume data.
Read more: After Bank Failures, Where Will Crypto Firms Turn?
March’s US trading volume highs remain a departure from peaks seen in late 2022. In November 2022, in the aftermath of FTX’s collapse, US volumes spiked to more than $1 trillion as investors scrambled to pull assets off exchanges.
On Nov. 12, 2022, the day after FTX filed for bankruptcy, US exchanges saw about $1.3 trillion in trading volume. By mid-December 2022, volumes fell back to around $586 million.
Similar to centralized exchanges, decentralized crypto exchanges saw a large increase in mid-March. Uniswap facilitated more than $13 billion in trading volume while Curve facilitated close to $8 billion in trades on March 11, 2023, according to data from Blockworks Research.
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