Let's talk volume.

[cryptocrusher]

One thing I've constantly seen being said is that bitcoin volume is significantly lower than it was in the run up to and at its peak in December. While looking at the USD/BTC chart I noticed an interesting thing and that is how relatively the volume isn't changed all that much. By that I mean:

Dec 17th high: $20,035   Volume: 14,916,600,000     that means approximately 745,000 bitcoin changed hands on that date.

Yesterday, March 27th: $7979    Volume:   5,480,430,000    approximately 687,000 bitcoin changed hands.

From that we can see that volume is only down about 10% in terms of actual bitcoin traded. I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this, just perhaps to ignore some of the stories stating how bitcoin volume is so low, because all of them are measuring that volume in USD not in BTC.

Be interested to hear any opinions on what this could mean for the market.

All data was taken from coinmarketcap.

    Date                Close        Volume          Bitcoin volume
Dec 17, 2017   19,140.80   13,314,600,000   695613.5585
Dec 18, 2017   19,114.20   14,839,500,000   776359.9837
Dec 19, 2017   17,776.70   16,894,500,000   950373.2414
Dec 20, 2017   16,624.60   22,149,700,000   1332344.838
Dec 21, 2017   15,802.90   16,516,600,000   1045162.597
Dec 22, 2017   13,831.80   22,198,000,000   1604852.586
Dec 23, 2017   14,699.20   13,086,000,000   890252.5307
Dec 24, 2017   13,925.80   11,572,300,000   830997.142
Dec 25, 2017   14,026.60   10,664,700,000   760319.6783
Dec 26, 2017   16,099.80   13,454,300,000   835681.1886
Dec 27, 2017   15,838.50   12,487,600,000   788433.2481
Dec 28, 2017   14,606.50   12,336,500,000   844589.7374
Dec 29, 2017   14,656.20   13,025,500,000   888736.5074
Dec 30, 2017   12,952.20   14,452,600,000   1115841.324
Dec 31, 2017   14,156.40   12,136,300,000   857301.2913
Jan 01, 2018   13,657.20   10,291,200,000   753536.5961
Jan 02, 2018   14,982.10   16,846,600,000   1124448.509
Jan 03, 2018   15,201.00   16,871,900,000   1109920.4
Jan 04, 2018   15,599.20   21,783,200,000   1396430.586
Jan 05, 2018   17,429.50   23,840,900,000   1367847.615
Jan 06, 2018   17,527.00   18,314,600,000   1044936.384
Jan 07, 2018   16,477.60   15,866,000,000   962882.9441
Jan 08, 2018   15,170.10   18,413,900,000   1213828.518
Jan 09, 2018   14,595.40   16,660,000,000   1141455.527
Jan 10, 2018   14,973.30   18,500,800,000   1235586.01
Jan 11, 2018   13,405.80   16,534,100,000   1233354.22
Jan 12, 2018   13,980.60   12,065,700,000   863031.6295
Jan 13, 2018   14,360.20   12,763,600,000   888817.7045
Jan 14, 2018   13,772.00   11,084,100,000   804828.6378
Jan 15, 2018   13,819.80   12,750,800,000   922647.2163
Jan 16, 2018   11,490.50   18,853,800,000   1640816.327
Jan 17, 2018   11,188.60   18,830,600,000   1683016.642
Jan 18, 2018   11,474.90   15,020,400,000   1308978.727
Jan 19, 2018   11,607.40   10,740,400,000   925306.2701
Jan 20, 2018   12,899.20   11,801,700,000   914917.2042
Jan 21, 2018   11,600.10   9,935,180,000   856473.6511
Jan 22, 2018   10,931.40   10,537,400,000   963957.0412
Jan 23, 2018   10,868.40   9,660,610,000   888871.407
Jan 24, 2018   11,359.40   9,940,990,000   875133.3697
Jan 25, 2018   11,259.40   8,873,170,000   788067.7478
Jan 26, 2018   11,171.40   9,746,200,000   872424.2261
Jan 27, 2018   11,440.70   7,583,270,000   662832.6938
Jan 28, 2018   11,786.30   8,350,360,000   708480.1846
Jan 29, 2018   11,296.40   7,107,360,000   629170.3552
Jan 30, 2018   10,106.30   8,637,860,000   854700.5333
Jan 31, 2018   10,221.10   8,041,160,000   786721.5857
Feb 01, 2018   9,170.54   9,959,400,000   1086021.107
Feb 02, 2018   8,830.75   12,726,900,000   1441202.616
Feb 03, 2018   9,174.91   7,263,790,000   791701.499
Feb 04, 2018   8,277.01   7,073,550,000   854602.0846
Feb 05, 2018   6,955.27   9,285,290,000   1335000.654
Feb 06, 2018   7,754.00   13,999,800,000   1805493.939
Feb 07, 2018   7,621.30   9,169,280,000   1203112.33
Feb 08, 2018   8,265.59   9,346,750,000   1130802.52
Feb 09, 2018   8,736.98   6,784,820,000   776563.5265
Feb 10, 2018   8,621.90   7,780,960,000   902464.654
Feb 11, 2018   8,129.97   6,122,190,000   753039.6791
Feb 12, 2018   8,926.57   6,256,440,000   700878.3889
Feb 13, 2018   8,598.31   5,696,720,000   662539.499
Feb 14, 2018   9,494.63   7,909,820,000   833083.543
Feb 15, 2018   10,166.40   9,062,540,000   891420.7586
Feb 16, 2018   10,233.90   7,296,160,000   712940.3258
Feb 17, 2018   11,112.70   8,660,880,000   779367.7504
Feb 18, 2018   10,551.80   8,744,010,000   828674.7285
Feb 19, 2018   11,225.30   7,652,090,000   681682.4495
Feb 20, 2018   11,403.70   9,926,540,000   870466.6029
Feb 21, 2018   10,690.40   9,405,340,000   879793.0854
Feb 22, 2018   10,005.00   8,040,080,000   803606.1969
Feb 23, 2018   10,301.10   7,739,500,000   751327.5281
Feb 24, 2018   9,813.07   6,917,930,000   704971.0233
Feb 25, 2018   9,664.73   5,706,940,000   590491.4053
Feb 26, 2018   10,366.70   7,287,690,000   702990.3441
Feb 27, 2018   10,725.60   6,966,180,000   649490.9376
Feb 28, 2018   10,397.90   6,936,190,000   667076.0442
Mar 01, 2018   10,951.00   7,317,280,000   668183.7275
Mar 02, 2018   11,086.40   7,620,590,000   687381.8372
Mar 03, 2018   11,489.70   6,690,570,000   582310.2431
Mar 04, 2018   11,512.60   6,084,150,000   528477.4942
Mar 05, 2018   11,573.30   6,468,540,000   558919.2365
Mar 06, 2018   10,779.90   6,832,170,000   633787.883
Mar 07, 2018   9,965.57   8,797,910,000   882830.5857
Mar 08, 2018   9,395.01   7,186,090,000   764883.6989
Mar 09, 2018   9,337.55   8,704,190,000   932170.6443
Mar 10, 2018   8,866.00   5,386,320,000   607525.3778
Mar 11, 2018   9,578.63   6,296,370,000   657335.1304
Mar 12, 2018   9,205.12   6,457,400,000   701500.9038
Mar 13, 2018   9,194.85   5,991,140,000   651575.6103
Mar 14, 2018   8,269.81   6,438,230,000   778522.1184
Mar 15, 2018   8,300.86   6,834,430,000   823339.9913
Mar 16, 2018   8,338.35   5,289,380,000   634343.7251
Mar 17, 2018   7,916.88   4,426,150,000   559077.5659
Mar 18, 2018   8,223.68   6,639,190,000   807325.9174
Mar 19, 2018   8,630.65   6,729,110,000   779675.9224
Mar 20, 2018   8,913.47   6,361,790,000   713727.6504
Mar 21, 2018   8,929.28   6,043,130,000   676776.851
Mar 22, 2018   8,728.47   5,530,390,000   633603.5983
Mar 23, 2018   8,879.62   5,954,120,000   670537.7032
Mar 24, 2018   8,668.12   5,664,600,000   653498.1057
Mar 25, 2018   8,495.78   4,569,880,000   537899.9927
Mar 26, 2018   8,209.40   5,921,040,000   721251.2486
Mar 27, 2018   7,833.04   5,378,250,000   686610.8178

Edit: I added the calculations from December 17th through to today using the close for the day. It's definitely clear to see that volume's have dropped off a little but not as much as would seem apparent if you considered USD volumes. The average BTC volume in this period was 880,883 per day.

[NeuroticFish]

Be interested to hear any opinions on what this could mean for the market.

Interesting find, I was also under the impression the volumes got really low because I've read so, but I didn't check.

It would be nice to see how these numbers look like for a longer period of time, but this could be the silence before the storm, whether the storm will be orchestrated by bulls.. or bears...



Edit: thanks for the list of numbers, they are indeed interesting. March 9th was almost the same volume as December 19th Indeed, somebody has tried some manipulation in that area too, still can't understand the reasons. They wanted to imply people don't trade Bitcoin anymore? Really??!?!

[cryptocrusher]

Be interested to hear any opinions on what this could mean for the market.

Interesting find, I was also under the impression the volumes got really low because I've read so, but I didn't check.

It would be nice to see how these numbers look like for a longer period of time, but this could be the silence before the storm, whether the storm will be orchestrated by bulls.. or bears...

Here you go, I took the liberty to do it all for you, the initial figures differ slightly to the table because I used highs initially and closes in the table but it's not far off. Puts things in to context a little more, I also added the average for comparison.

[bitmover]

It's a interesting study. But I think the you need to analyze at least a year of data.

We are still with a very high volume.in October we had only 2 bi usd volume according to coinmarketcap
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/

Brazil stockmarket is 3bi usd volume per day, which is significantly lower than btc volume.

http://mobile.valor.com.br/financas/5230649/volume-medio-diario-da-bovespa-sobe-11-em-novembro-ante-outubro

[magneto]

One thing I've constantly seen being said is that bitcoin volume is significantly lower than it was in the run up to and at its peak in December. While looking at the USD/BTC chart I noticed an interesting thing and that is how relatively the volume isn't changed all that much. By that I mean:

Dec 17th high: $20,035   Volume: 14,916,600,000     that means approximately 745,000 bitcoin changed hands on that date.

Yesterday, March 27th: $7979    Volume:   5,480,430,000    approximately 687,000 bitcoin changed hands.

From that we can see that volume is only down about 10% in terms of actual bitcoin traded. I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this, just perhaps to ignore some of the stories stating how bitcoin volume is so low, because all of them are measuring that volume in USD not in BTC.

Be interested to hear any opinions on what this could mean for the market.

All data was taken from coinmarketcap.

    Date                Close        Volume          Bitcoin volume
Dec 17, 2017   19,140.80   13,314,600,000   695613.5585
Dec 18, 2017   19,114.20   14,839,500,000   776359.9837
Dec 19, 2017   17,776.70   16,894,500,000   950373.2414
Dec 20, 2017   16,624.60   22,149,700,000   1332344.838
Dec 21, 2017   15,802.90   16,516,600,000   1045162.597
Dec 22, 2017   13,831.80   22,198,000,000   1604852.586
Dec 23, 2017   14,699.20   13,086,000,000   890252.5307
Dec 24, 2017   13,925.80   11,572,300,000   830997.142
Dec 25, 2017   14,026.60   10,664,700,000   760319.6783
Dec 26, 2017   16,099.80   13,454,300,000   835681.1886
Dec 27, 2017   15,838.50   12,487,600,000   788433.2481
Dec 28, 2017   14,606.50   12,336,500,000   844589.7374
Dec 29, 2017   14,656.20   13,025,500,000   888736.5074
Dec 30, 2017   12,952.20   14,452,600,000   1115841.324
Dec 31, 2017   14,156.40   12,136,300,000   857301.2913
Jan 01, 2018   13,657.20   10,291,200,000   753536.5961
Jan 02, 2018   14,982.10   16,846,600,000   1124448.509
Jan 03, 2018   15,201.00   16,871,900,000   1109920.4
Jan 04, 2018   15,599.20   21,783,200,000   1396430.586
Jan 05, 2018   17,429.50   23,840,900,000   1367847.615
Jan 06, 2018   17,527.00   18,314,600,000   1044936.384
Jan 07, 2018   16,477.60   15,866,000,000   962882.9441
Jan 08, 2018   15,170.10   18,413,900,000   1213828.518
Jan 09, 2018   14,595.40   16,660,000,000   1141455.527
Jan 10, 2018   14,973.30   18,500,800,000   1235586.01
Jan 11, 2018   13,405.80   16,534,100,000   1233354.22
Jan 12, 2018   13,980.60   12,065,700,000   863031.6295
Jan 13, 2018   14,360.20   12,763,600,000   888817.7045
Jan 14, 2018   13,772.00   11,084,100,000   804828.6378
Jan 15, 2018   13,819.80   12,750,800,000   922647.2163
Jan 16, 2018   11,490.50   18,853,800,000   1640816.327
Jan 17, 2018   11,188.60   18,830,600,000   1683016.642
Jan 18, 2018   11,474.90   15,020,400,000   1308978.727
Jan 19, 2018   11,607.40   10,740,400,000   925306.2701
Jan 20, 2018   12,899.20   11,801,700,000   914917.2042
Jan 21, 2018   11,600.10   9,935,180,000   856473.6511
Jan 22, 2018   10,931.40   10,537,400,000   963957.0412
Jan 23, 2018   10,868.40   9,660,610,000   888871.407
Jan 24, 2018   11,359.40   9,940,990,000   875133.3697
Jan 25, 2018   11,259.40   8,873,170,000   788067.7478
Jan 26, 2018   11,171.40   9,746,200,000   872424.2261
Jan 27, 2018   11,440.70   7,583,270,000   662832.6938
Jan 28, 2018   11,786.30   8,350,360,000   708480.1846
Jan 29, 2018   11,296.40   7,107,360,000   629170.3552
Jan 30, 2018   10,106.30   8,637,860,000   854700.5333
Jan 31, 2018   10,221.10   8,041,160,000   786721.5857
Feb 01, 2018   9,170.54   9,959,400,000   1086021.107
Feb 02, 2018   8,830.75   12,726,900,000   1441202.616
Feb 03, 2018   9,174.91   7,263,790,000   791701.499
Feb 04, 2018   8,277.01   7,073,550,000   854602.0846
Feb 05, 2018   6,955.27   9,285,290,000   1335000.654
Feb 06, 2018   7,754.00   13,999,800,000   1805493.939
Feb 07, 2018   7,621.30   9,169,280,000   1203112.33
Feb 08, 2018   8,265.59   9,346,750,000   1130802.52
Feb 09, 2018   8,736.98   6,784,820,000   776563.5265
Feb 10, 2018   8,621.90   7,780,960,000   902464.654
Feb 11, 2018   8,129.97   6,122,190,000   753039.6791
Feb 12, 2018   8,926.57   6,256,440,000   700878.3889
Feb 13, 2018   8,598.31   5,696,720,000   662539.499
Feb 14, 2018   9,494.63   7,909,820,000   833083.543
Feb 15, 2018   10,166.40   9,062,540,000   891420.7586
Feb 16, 2018   10,233.90   7,296,160,000   712940.3258
Feb 17, 2018   11,112.70   8,660,880,000   779367.7504
Feb 18, 2018   10,551.80   8,744,010,000   828674.7285
Feb 19, 2018   11,225.30   7,652,090,000   681682.4495
Feb 20, 2018   11,403.70   9,926,540,000   870466.6029
Feb 21, 2018   10,690.40   9,405,340,000   879793.0854
Feb 22, 2018   10,005.00   8,040,080,000   803606.1969
Feb 23, 2018   10,301.10   7,739,500,000   751327.5281
Feb 24, 2018   9,813.07   6,917,930,000   704971.0233
Feb 25, 2018   9,664.73   5,706,940,000   590491.4053
Feb 26, 2018   10,366.70   7,287,690,000   702990.3441
Feb 27, 2018   10,725.60   6,966,180,000   649490.9376
Feb 28, 2018   10,397.90   6,936,190,000   667076.0442
Mar 01, 2018   10,951.00   7,317,280,000   668183.7275
Mar 02, 2018   11,086.40   7,620,590,000   687381.8372
Mar 03, 2018   11,489.70   6,690,570,000   582310.2431
Mar 04, 2018   11,512.60   6,084,150,000   528477.4942
Mar 05, 2018   11,573.30   6,468,540,000   558919.2365
Mar 06, 2018   10,779.90   6,832,170,000   633787.883
Mar 07, 2018   9,965.57   8,797,910,000   882830.5857
Mar 08, 2018   9,395.01   7,186,090,000   764883.6989
Mar 09, 2018   9,337.55   8,704,190,000   932170.6443
Mar 10, 2018   8,866.00   5,386,320,000   607525.3778
Mar 11, 2018   9,578.63   6,296,370,000   657335.1304
Mar 12, 2018   9,205.12   6,457,400,000   701500.9038
Mar 13, 2018   9,194.85   5,991,140,000   651575.6103
Mar 14, 2018   8,269.81   6,438,230,000   778522.1184
Mar 15, 2018   8,300.86   6,834,430,000   823339.9913
Mar 16, 2018   8,338.35   5,289,380,000   634343.7251
Mar 17, 2018   7,916.88   4,426,150,000   559077.5659
Mar 18, 2018   8,223.68   6,639,190,000   807325.9174
Mar 19, 2018   8,630.65   6,729,110,000   779675.9224
Mar 20, 2018   8,913.47   6,361,790,000   713727.6504
Mar 21, 2018   8,929.28   6,043,130,000   676776.851
Mar 22, 2018   8,728.47   5,530,390,000   633603.5983
Mar 23, 2018   8,879.62   5,954,120,000   670537.7032
Mar 24, 2018   8,668.12   5,664,600,000   653498.1057
Mar 25, 2018   8,495.78   4,569,880,000   537899.9927
Mar 26, 2018   8,209.40   5,921,040,000   721251.2486
Mar 27, 2018   7,833.04   5,378,250,000   686610.8178

Edit: I added the calculations from December 17th through to today using the close for the day. It's definitely clear to see that volume's have dropped off a little but not as much as would seem apparent if you considered USD volumes. The average BTC volume in this period was 880,883 per day.

Interesting study.

There is really no point in measuring volume in USD and saying that the volume dropped from December last year when the ATH of BTC was hit. Well, no crap that bitcoin volume will down in fiat terms when its prices go down as well.

IMO, if you're conducting any sort of study based on volume in a volatile market, you're probably better off using the native currency as a measure of volume instead of fiat currency.

Plus, volume will always be higher in periods of high volatility, everyone knows that. IMO, only if the price is relatively stable yet the volume is going up drastically will it actually lead to a big movement upward or downwards.

[criptix]

Amount of btc volume did not change much but the amount of fiat money traded differs by a lot.

Demand for btc with fiat is definitely going down.

[timerland]

Amount of btc volume did not change much but the amount of fiat money traded differs by a lot.

Demand for btc with fiat is definitely going down.

Of course. If bitcoin volumes are staying the same, but fiat volume is drastically decreasing, that literally means that the price of BTC is going down. And indeed it has. If the price of bitcoin is going down, doesn't that literally mean that demand for bitcoin has reduced? So what's your point here?

I honestly don't think that there is as much correlation between volume and price as some people think. And it's no good trying to argue that BTC is going down further because the USD volumes have been going down, because as OP has shown, bitcoin volume only decreased by around 10%. If this BTC volume does increase or decrease dramatically that can definitely be a sign of a pump/dump. However, right now, it's just staying put. So there's really nothing to extract from this.

But even without the volumes, I think it's safe to say that 2018 is going to be a relatively quiet year compared to 2017. We probably will go down further for the year as well, being stuck in this bear market.

[Pursuer]

thanks, this was a pretty interesting way of looking at things.

also I would like to add one more thing. this is something that people usually forget, and that's the fact that the way price changes affects the volume too. for example if price doesn't move at all or moves less than 5% (up or down doesn't matter) the volume will be a lot lower compared to when it is moving 40% for example.
so when comparing volume of these days with the volume of December for instance people should also take into consideration that big change too. the change in December was more than $10,000 and the change these days is less than $2000 so obviously the volume should also be a lot smaller.

[Wind_FURY]

Amount of btc volume did not change much but the amount of fiat money traded differs by a lot.

Demand for btc with fiat is definitely going down.

Confining the level of demand to the price should also be a good indicator of that. Hahaha.

I believe we should also be worried about the low transaction volume. Some transactions with a fee of 1 Satoshi are going through!

[Welhell]

This situations mean is everything gonna be alright or there is still a lot of demand for bitcoin. All of them come to mean the price will increase and we should get more altcoins which we can earn more profit.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I believe we should also be worried about the low transaction volume. Some transactions with a fee of 1 Satoshi are going through!

Why is this a bad thing? With more exchanges starting to batch their transactions, and more addresses moving to Segwit, the mempool is less clogged up, and transactions are faster and cheaper.

[adam1230]

really nice analyses  this is a good indicator for market prediction. And it seems we are not going down under 6000$ for now.
If volume gets down in this timeframe we will start to talk about under 6k$ soon.

[alyssa85]

Amount of btc volume did not change much but the amount of fiat money traded differs by a lot.

Demand for btc with fiat is definitely going down.

Of course. If bitcoin volumes are staying the same, but fiat volume is drastically decreasing, that literally means that the price of BTC is going down. And indeed it has. If the price of bitcoin is going down, doesn't that literally mean that demand for bitcoin has reduced? So what's your point here?

I honestly don't think that there is as much correlation between volume and price as some people think.

I disagree. Remember that new coins are minted every day and get dumped in the market to pay for electricity, taxes and whatnot. So you need a certain amount of volume to absorb all those coins. Volume matters more in the bitcoin markert than in say stocks where the number of issued shares is fixed and they don't need continual buying just to stand still.

[Wind_FURY]

I believe we should also be worried about the low transaction volume. Some transactions with a fee of 1 Satoshi are going through!

Why is this a bad thing? With more exchanges starting to batch their transactions, and more addresses moving to Segwit, the mempool is less clogged up, and transactions are faster and cheaper.

Because that might also mean that Bitcoin is not being used for transactions. It is in my belief that usage, or transaction volume, is more important than trading volume. That's where Bitcoin's real value comes from, not from some artificial form of measurement like the market cap.