The following article is the rework of the thoughts put forward by Mati Greenspan, the Senior Market Analyst at eToro.
Key Highlights:
- Crypto volumes and the ‘illegal’ technique of Wash Trading
- Messari Crypto adds a new column called “Real 10.”
- Argentina and the growing craze for Bitcoin
The bitwise report, fake exchange volumes, and aftermath
This week Bitwise released a report that shook the crypto industry from head to toe. The report spoke about how illusory trading volume numbers were among crypto exchanges outside the United States which meant around 95% of the Bitcoin trading volume for the top-81 exchanges on CoinMarketCap, the largest cryptocurrency market data aggregation site in the world is likely fake. The news spread at such pace that a large number of audiences just misunderstood it.
The findings of the report have definitely changed the perception of the crypto market in a profound way. To fully understand this, one needs to look past the headline. For those who are familiar with markets overall, would be familiar that an act like this is called “wash trading” and it is illegal in most regulated exchanges. To elaborate Wash trading is a process whereby a trader buys and sells a security for the express purpose of feeding misleading information to the market.
Thanks to reports like Bitwise this issue is now being addressed. CoinMarketCap.com has now acknowledged the issue and say they’re working on bringing more clarity to their site.
We are listening to all our users’ feedback, and we are working hard to add a suite of new metrics so users can get a fuller picture of exchanges and crypto on the site. What are some new metrics you would like to see? Share with us. ? https://t.co/ZgEs80lH1S
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) March 26, 2019
Also Read: Trust Only These Ten Cryptocurrency Exchanges, Warns Bitwise Asset Management
It’s not just Coinmarketcap, Messari too introduced two new metrics yesterday: “Real 10,” the trading volume from the 10 exchanges found to have real volume and “Liquid-Cap,” an alternative to market cap.
We‘re adding two critical new metrics to our @onchainfx dashboard, products of over a year of research:
(1) “Real 10” exchange volume
(2) “Liquid Cap” market cap alternativeRead more: https://t.co/IVj6lJKlMt
— Messari (@MessariCrypto) March 26, 2019
The key here is that all this wash trading that’s been discovered hasn’t actually affected the price of bitcoin itself in any meaningful way. In fact, if one focus only on the real 10 exchanges, they may see that this market is much more robust than previously perceived.
Argentina’s love for Bitcoin
While things still are on the cliff hanger for cryptos, Argentina is rapidly becoming one of the most bitcoin-friendly nations on the planet. The media is ripe with news which says that there is no crypto winter in Argentina. In addition, the state has recently started accepting bitcoin to pay for public transportation. Though there is an ample number of local exchanges in the country and it is easy to buy crypto, one can see that the level of peer to peer transactions on localbitcoins.com is rising steadily.Maybe this rising interest forced Tim Draper to meet the President of Argentina.
