CCData's weekly ‘Chart of the Week’ highlights topical digital asset developments with vital commentary and analysis.
This week's COTW examines the relationship between centralised (CEX) and decentralised exchange (DEX) volumes since 2021.
So far in November, CEX market share stands at 90.3%, slightly above the yearly average of 89.6%.
Interestingly, DEX volumes have soared to a record $292.54bn, reflecting a surge in on-chain activity.
Yet, despite this growth, CEXs remain firmly dominant as speculative activity picks up, driven by BTC’s approach to the $100k milestone.
While CEX market share has declined from 97.7% in January 2021 to its current level, the shift has been gradual, with dominance fluctuating between 88–91% in recent years.
This highlights the enduring strength of centralised platforms, even as decentralised alternatives gain traction.
This week’s Chart of the Week highlights May’s correlation of daily returns between BTC, ETH and the SP500, falling to 15.8% and 18.2%, respectively, the lowest level since August 2022.
Digital assets have benefitted from a significant price appreciation following signs that tight monetary policy and high interest rates may soon reach their peak. This comes after the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, causing a stir in the banking system, and amplifying the interest in digital assets.
The depegging of USDC and regulatory issues with BUSD has led to Binance converting $1 billion of their Industry Recovery Initiative funds to BTC, ETH, and BNB, triggering further buy pressure for digital assets.
In this week’s Chart of the Week, we look into how Ethereum's open interest has reached unprecedented levels following the approval of U.S. ETH ETFs.
At the start of May, open interest was $8.7 billion (2.9 million ETH). It has now surged to $14.4 billion (3.7 million ETH), marking an increase of approximately 65.5%. This significant rise underscores growing investor confidence and the impact of regulatory approvals on Ethereum's market dynamics.
In this week's Chart of the Week, we examine how, Ethereum recorded a 17.8% increase in just 2 hours (22:46 May 20 - 00:46 May 21) following news that there was an increased likelihood of the United States Securities and Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) approving a spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF). Alongside this price increase, Ethereum's volume surged to over $21 million within a couple of minutes, marking a 618% increase according to our CCIX index for ETH-USD.
Previous filings from the regulator, statements from SEC Chair Gary Gensler, and reports of investigations had indicated that the commission was likely to deny spot Ether ETF applications. However, In their May 20 posts on X, Bloomberg ETF analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas suggested that the SEC might be reconsidering - revising their prediction for the odds of spot Ether ETF approval from 25% to 75%.
At the beginning of the Asian market hours, a notable wave of selling pressure targeted the BTC-USD trading pair on Coinbase. Approximately 3,000 BTC was sold, in a matter of 2 hours - equivalent to around $200 million. This significant market activity drew the attention of market makers who seized the opportunity to engage, and capitalise on the opportunity. The 2% bid depth for BTC-USD on Coinbase increased from 200 to 700 BTC in a matter of minutes, indicating heightened trading activity.
In response to these dynamics, the price of Bitcoin experienced a substantial downturn. Initially, Bitcoin was trading around the $63,000 mark at the time of the event but subsequently fell to $61,200 levels. The downward momentum persisted throughout the trading session, with Bitcoin's price marking a low of $61,025 by 12:30 today. This trend underscores the persistent volatility and rapid shifts that can occur in the cryptocurrency markets, often influenced by large-scale trading movements and the strategic responses of market participants.
In this week's Chart of the Week, we examine Bitcoin’s recent price performance, which closed April with a 15.0% drop to $60,634. This marked the largest monthly decline since the FTX collapse in November 2022.
The retracement registered Bitcoin's first negative monthly returns in eight months, coinciding with weakened ETF inflows, higher than anticipated CPI inflation rate, and the recent escalation in the geopolitical crisis in the Middle East.
This week's Chart of the Week highlights the latest Bitcoin halving and its impact on daily miner revenue.Bitcoin halvings, which happen roughly every four years or every 210,000 blocks, reduce mining block rewards by half — in this case, from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. This reduction can lead to decreased revenue for miners, assuming transaction fees and the underlying price of Bitcoin remain consistent.While historically rising Bitcoin prices have offset the impact of reduced BTC issuance, transaction fees are expected to become increasingly significant for miners with the rising demand for Bitcoin block space.Shortly after the recent halving, daily transaction fees surged to 1,257 BTC —a dramatic 1,336% increase from the average daily fee of 88 BTC since August. This was primarily driven by the heightened interest in Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes.
For context, since August 2023, there have only been 24 days out of 267 where daily block rewards accounted for less than 80% of total daily mining revenue. The lowest percentage recorded was 24.56% on the day of the halving, when BTC daily transaction fees surged to 1,257 BTC, compared to daily block rewards of 409 BTC.
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