[2019-09-05] Fewer People Are Sending Bitcoin to Largest Crypto Exchanges

[bomj]

The notion that more people are trading cryptocurrencies? Well, it just may be wrong.

Fewer people have been sending Bitcoin to major exchanges in recent months, according to crypto data tracker TokenAnalyst. After peaking in 2017, the number of unique addresses sending the world’s most-popular cryptocurrency to exchanges such as Binance and Bitfinex has been declining, it found.

The number of addresses sending the token to the Bitfinex trading platform is at a two-year low, while the amount on Malta-based Binance -- the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume -- dropped to early 2018 levels, according to TokenAnalyst.

That signals a “lack of retail interest in general currently in crypto,” said Sid Shekhar, co-founder of London-based TokenAnalyst. “If we go by the ‘Bitcoin as safe haven in times of recession’ narrative, the number of new users/buyers should actually be increasing.”

Other data point in the same direction. Bitcoin exchange trade volume in U.S. dollars is at its lowest point since May, and has been trending down since peaking in 2017, according to Blockchain.com. Web traffic to Binance and Hong Kong-based Bitfinex is at a four-month low, according to tracker SimilarWeb.

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Bloomberg (more)

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[Theb]

It's just the timing of the news on where the current market situation is now. Obviously if the market lacks activity in terms of price jumps then can't expect new people pouring in more money in the crypto market. It's like you are asking people to put more money on a market where it's future is still uncertain as of the moment. The article itself didn't gave any explanation why this is happening and went ahead with their point without explaining why it is happening. Such as shame to see that even Bloomberg is not telling all sides of the story in their news. For newbies reading this don't lose your hope because we are just in a market phase that lacks action as a result of big price movements we had earlier in this year.

[figmentofmyass]

Fewer people have been sending Bitcoin to major exchanges in recent months, according to crypto data tracker TokenAnalyst. After peaking in 2017, the number of unique addresses sending the world’s most-popular cryptocurrency to exchanges such as Binance and Bitfinex has been declining, it found.

The number of addresses sending the token to the Bitfinex trading platform is at a two-year low, while the amount on Malta-based Binance -- the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume -- dropped to early 2018 levels, according to TokenAnalyst.

That signals a “lack of retail interest in general currently in crypto,” said Sid Shekhar, co-founder of London-based TokenAnalyst. “If we go by the ‘Bitcoin as safe haven in times of recession’ narrative, the number of new users/buyers should actually be increasing.”

if less people are sending coins to exchanges, how does that equate to less new buyers?

perhaps less coins are being sent to exchanges because that's what happens during bull markets---the ask side dries up. that's partly what drives the price up. the same thing happened in the run-up to the 2013 and 2017 bubbles.

it could also be that liquidity is leaving these particular exchanges. bitfinex is in a legal clusterfuck and binance is giving USA traders the boot in a week.

Other data point in the same direction. Bitcoin exchange trade volume in U.S. dollars is at its lowest point since May

that's what happens during sideways consolidations. get ready for a breakout soon!

[bittraffic]

Fewer people are now trying to sell BTC nor buy altcoins using BTC, they could just be holding preparing for the next big thing. Its no surprising they are waiting for the price to take a big spike to more than $15k. If I have bought BTC while the price is $3k, I would really be holding onto it for it will be rarer than ever when finally the price slums all these sell walls.

[o_e_l_e_o]

it could also be that liquidity is leaving these particular exchanges.

It could be that liquidity is leaving all centralized exchanges. The number of exchange hacks and shady behavior is forever on the increase, even amongst the big exchanges. Coinbase selling customers' data, the Binance KYC hack, Bitfinex likely being insolvent, Bithumb hack, the list goes on. And the hacks of smaller exchanges are becoming too numerous to even keep track of. Perhaps investors are finally realizing the centralized exchanges are not safe. With the ongoing growth of buying and selling options like bitcoin ATMs and well functioning DEXs like BISQ, there are more options available and less need now than ever to use a centralized exchange.

Rather than this showing a "lack of interest", it might actually be demonstrating that users are becoming more interested in learning how to use it safely and privately.

[squatter]

it could also be that liquidity is leaving these particular exchanges.

It could be that liquidity is leaving all centralized exchanges. The number of exchange hacks and shady behavior is forever on the increase, even amongst the big exchanges. Coinbase selling customers' data, the Binance KYC hack, Bitfinex likely being insolvent, Bithumb hack, the list goes on. And the hacks of smaller exchanges are becoming too numerous to even keep track of. Perhaps investors are finally realizing the centralized exchanges are not safe. With the ongoing growth of buying and selling options like bitcoin ATMs and well functioning DEXs like BISQ, there are more options available and less need now than ever to use a centralized exchange.

Rather than this showing a "lack of interest", it might actually be demonstrating that users are becoming more interested in learning how to use it safely and privately.

I'd like to think that's true, but I doubt it. People are highly driven by convenience and ease of use -- that's not P2P and decentralized exchanges. I like Bisq, but hardly anyone is using it compared to centralized exchanges.

I'd be curious to see the numbers for Coinbase, who I think is more representative of what new or typical users are doing. Their wallets don't seem to be listed on Wallet Explorer, though.

[hatshepsut93]

if less people are sending coins to exchanges, how does that equate to less new buyers?

perhaps less coins are being sent to exchanges because that's what happens during bull markets---the ask side dries up. that's partly what drives the price up. the same thing happened in the run-up to the 2013 and 2017 bubbles.

That's what is actually happening, they should have looked at metrics like new account registrations per month and fiat deposits, though this data is only available only to exchanges. But they are right that interest in Bitcoin trading is lower now than it was a few months ago - other indicators like Google trends support it too. But there's nothing wrong about it, Bitcoin is currently in a "boring" sideways phase.

With the ongoing growth of buying and selling options like bitcoin ATMs and well functioning DEXs like BISQ, there are more options available and less need now than ever to use a centralized exchange.

I checked CMC and it shows that BISQ has $1.9 mil volume, and $1.7 mil is traded on XMR/BTC pair. Those numbers are really unimpressive compared to even small centralized exchanges.

[stompix]

With the ongoing growth of buying and selling options like bitcoin ATMs and well functioning DEXs like BISQ, there are more options available and less need now than ever to use a centralized exchange.

No, just no.
DEXs maybe but ATMs no, simply no. With 5% (if you're lucky) to 15% fees, nobody will sell more than a couple of mbits via those.
We're talking about people sending coins, that usually means for selling, so people who have bought them, hodl them for a while and that know how much they've paid in fees when they bought and how much those should be, not some noobs trying an atm for the first time.

But, I'm starting to like the press section again, four topics I really liked from the news perspective lately..
And this one it's a piece of pretty good news, fewer people sending coins means fewer sellers or more hodlers keeping their coins in a damn personal wallet, not on some bank-like exchange.

That's what is actually happening, they should have looked at metrics like new account registrations per month and fiat deposits, though this data is only available only to exchanges.

I'm pretty sure all exchanges are overinflating every bit of data they can in order to look like they have billions of customers.

To increase user loyalty and the amount of fees they can charge, a number of exchanges, such as Binance and Bitfinex, have rolled out or expanded availability of margin trading, letting users borrow funds to speculate. Binance began user testing its futures products this month, after allowing traders to lend out their funds to others in August.

Damn, I always said that those exchanges are going to turn into something far worse than BoA, DB or HSBC but I never thought it would be that fast.

[figmentofmyass]

To increase user loyalty and the amount of fees they can charge, a number of exchanges, such as Binance and Bitfinex, have rolled out or expanded availability of margin trading, letting users borrow funds to speculate. Binance began user testing its futures products this month, after allowing traders to lend out their funds to others in August.

Damn, I always said that those exchanges are going to turn into something far worse than BoA, DB or HSBC but I never thought it would be that fast.

bitfinex has been offering p2p margin lending since 2013 so it's not even a new development. it's also not the same as fractional reserve deposit lending at banks. the margin loans are collateralized and are for trading only. positions are liquidated if there is a risk that collateral can't cover the loan.

i still don't think the lending rates justify the risks, but compared to banks that are offering customers virtually nothing in interest, i can understand the temptation to lend.

[Carlton Banks]

I'd be curious to see the numbers for Coinbase, who I think is more representative of what new or typical users are doing.

wouldn't we all, but Coinbase are unlikely to ever release anything but the most cooked/opaque figures they can slap together

[1Referee]

they should have looked at metrics like new account registrations per month and fiat deposits, though this data is only available only to exchanges.

Registrations as metric is just as flawed as volumes and whatnot. I can sign up to an exchange with thousands of accounts and not complete the KYC procedure, which means that the accounts are worthless. If I can do that, an exchange can too. Exchanges that display the number of registrations do not exclude non verified accounts for obvious reasons.

Interest can be measured in stablecoins with how they are the only fiat metric we can actually trace. If we look at USDC for example, they have reached an all time high this month in the number of stablecoins they have circulating. This means that capital is still entering crypto.

[bryant.coleman]

See how these guys are twisting the news. The exchange volumes are down because the altcoins are decimated and the users are no longer spending their Bitcoins to purchase worthless shitcoins. And in most cases those who had altcoins have already converted them to either BTC or USDT. In just 4 months, the altcoin market share (excluding the Bitcoin forks and the stablecoins such as USDT and USDC) have gone down from more than 50%, to less than 25%. No one expected such as steep fall in a very short duration.

And since they are not investing/trading in shitcoins, there is no point in keeping the BTC in exchanges (as it makes the coins more vulnerable to hacks and robberies). So what happened is that they simply withdrew the BTC to the online or desktop wallets. Bitcoin is looking quite strong, especially after the bull run which took the exchange rates from $3K to $10K. The decimation of the shitcoins have nothing to do with Bitcoin. They went down owing to their own failures.

[BitHodler]

See how these guys are twisting the news. The exchange volumes are down because the altcoins are decimated and the users are no longer spending their Bitcoins to purchase worthless shitcoins. And in most cases those who had altcoins have already converted them to either BTC or USDT. In just 4 months, the altcoin market share (excluding the Bitcoin forks and the stablecoins such as USDT and USDC) have gone down from more than 50%, to less than 25%. No one expected such as steep fall in a very short duration.

The altcoin space seems so depressing that Binance came out and said that they expect Bitcoin's dominance to go back down to 60 or 50%. They make most of their money from altcoin trades, so this is very bad for them.

It's going to be interesting to see if altcoins will yet again face a massive selloff when Binance stops serving US residents next week. In this specific case I don't mind regulations to clean this space from all the garbage coins.

Smart traders and investors have sold their altcoins to Bitcoin the moment critical support levels were broken, while the yolo get rich quick noobs think it's a good thing to show how tough they are by hodling them.

[bryant.coleman]

Smart traders and investors have sold their altcoins to Bitcoin the moment critical support levels were broken, while the yolo get rich quick noobs think it's a good thing to show how tough they are by hodling them.

This is a mistake that I did earlier in 2013, when I was new to the cryptocurrency sector. I invested in a few shitcoins such as Quark, Ixcoin.etc and they went down by more than 90% in the next few months. I continued to hold on to them, hoping that one day they'll make a recovery and I will get my capital back. That didn't happened and eventually these coins became dormant.

What I had learned from these incidents is that if a smaller altcoin (i.e those outside the top-20 list in coinmarketcap) goes down continuously for more than 6 months, then there is no point in holding it. An exception can be made if it shows a stable trade volume (as it indicates that some demand is there). After 3-6 months, you need to sell the coin at whatever prices available, to prevent complete losses.

[o_e_l_e_o]

DEXs maybe but ATMs no, simply no. With 5% (if you're lucky) to 15% fees, nobody will sell more than a couple of mbits via those.

Those were just examples. There are sites like LBC and Paxful, more and more OTC options, and so on. There is less dependence on centralized exchanges as these options grow. I would also rather pay a 5% ATM fee than give away my documents to any exchange. People really undervalue their privacy these days, or how horrendous identity theft can be.

they should have looked at metrics like new account registrations per month and fiat deposits, though this data is only available only to exchanges.

Registrations as metric is just as flawed as volumes and whatnot.

Any metric coming from an exchange will be flawed - they all artificially inflate their numbers to make them seem like a bigger player than they are. The numbers that we can chart accurately - such as hash rate or transactions per day - are showing a steady increase.

The exchange volumes are down because the altcoins are decimated and the users are no longer spending their Bitcoins to purchase worthless shitcoins.

It's been a while since I scrolled down on Coinmarketcap, but the volumes being trade for some altcoins are hilariously low. There are quite a few with daily volumes of only a few million, and there's one called Bytecoin at position 57 with a daily volume of only $13k. Glad to see a bunch of these worthless altcoins dying off.

[davis196]

Not all bitcoin users are crypto traders with accounts in the top 5 cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
It' not a secret that bitcoin adoption(and crypto adoption in general) are extremely slow.
This years BTC price pump from 4K to 11K USD was funded mostly by the retreat from altcoins.That's why the bitcoin dominance has increased.

[NeuroticFish]

Address reuse is still big and may not help in these statistics.
Always the number of trades is bigger in the FOMO period; clearly since then the things have cooled down greatly.
Binance was new and the speculators and arbitrage traders were still going there, setting up, using new addresses; now they're set and may not need new things.

OK, it's clearly a decrease. But I am sure that the numbers are not as accurate as they want us to believe; and to be fair, we have to compare the numbers FOMO against FOMO, cool down vs cool down. And clearly not jump to conclusions like there would be a decrease in interest.

[malevolent]

No, just no.
DEXs maybe but ATMs no, simply no. With 5% (if you're lucky) to 15% fees, nobody will sell more than a couple of mbits via those.
We're talking about people sending coins, that usually means for selling, so people who have bought them, hodl them for a while and that know how much they've paid in fees when they bought and how much those should be, not some noobs trying an atm for the first time.

Not true, you're just looking at countries with an oppressive AML regime making it more expensive to run Bitcoin ATMs. In Europe you can find ATMs selling/buying bitcoins for a 2-3% fee.

[stompix]

No, just no.
DEXs maybe but ATMs no, simply no. With 5% (if you're lucky) to 15% fees, nobody will sell more than a couple of mbits via those.
We're talking about people sending coins, that usually means for selling, so people who have bought them, hodl them for a while and that know how much they've paid in fees when they bought and how much those should be, not some noobs trying an atm for the first time.

Not true, you're just looking at countries with an oppressive AML regime making it more expensive to run Bitcoin ATMs. In Europe you can find ATMs selling/buying bitcoins for a 2-3% fee.

Hihi, I live in Europe 
The thing with the can find is, unfortunately, a bit more problematic.
As you can see coin radar shows a lot of 4.9% fees and sometimes even some pretty tempting 2% which, unfortunately, are not always true as you get one fee listed on the website and when you reach the ATM you will see another thing, I personally had a really bad experience with one of the biggest ATM operators around here so I won't use their ATMs ever again
Also on that website, I have close to 30 ATMs near me, in 3 countries, lol,  as I live near the border and only 2 of them show a fee lower than 5%.

Besides, I really don't think is about the AML and more about the cost of the ATM, like rent and others and their greed.

[malevolent]

Hihi, I live in Europe  
The thing with the can find is, unfortunately, a bit more problematic.
As you can see coin radar shows a lot of 4.9% fees and sometimes even some pretty tempting 2% which, unfortunately, are not always true as you get one fee listed on the website and when you reach the ATM you will see another thing, I personally had a really bad experience with one of the biggest ATM operators around here so I won't use their ATMs ever again
Also on that website, I have close to 30 ATMs near me, in 3 countries, lol,  as I live near the border and only 2 of them show a fee lower than 5%.

Besides, I really don't think is about the AML and more about the cost of the ATM, like rent and others and their greed.

Well, at least the ones in Poland often do usually charge less than 5%, even after increases in fees of two major ATM operators.

AML of course is going to increase costs of doing business, KYC-capable ATMs are more expensive, and the operator has to pay an external company to deal with the KYC if they don't want to spend resources on doing it themselves.