Banking, finance, and taxes

Over $600 Billion in Cryptocurrencies Traded in May

Paul Ausick

Published: May 30, 2018 12:55 pm

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 10:59 pm

Cryptocurrency exchange tracker CoinMarketCap reported Wednesday that more than $606 billion in 1,633 different cryptocurrencies changed hands in May. The total is less than half the $1.4 trillion in more than 1,500 cryptocurrencies traded in April.

While April was a bullish month for cryptotraders, May was decidedly bearish.

The most heavily traded was Bitcoin, with a 30-day volume of $184.31 billion, followed by Tether with a volume of $92.65 billion and Ethereum with a volume of $76.54 billion.

For an interesting contrast in the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin.com posted a list of the top 10 exchanges in August 2016, along with their trading volume for a 24-hour period. Of those, eight have been replaced on the list. Here are 2016’s top three exchanges, along with daily volume:

• Okcoin.cn: $440.53 million
• BtcTrade: $218.94 million
• Huobi: $165.25 million

As of yesterday, Okcoin.cn ranked 188th, BtcTrade ranked 54th and Huobi ranked fourth. Two of 2016’s top exchanges are defunct.

The top four exchanges today and their 24-hour trading volumes all top $1 billion:

• BitMEX: $2.49 billion
• Binance: $1.56 billion
• OKEx: $1.48 billion
• Huobi: $1.13 billion

Cryptocurrencies, led by Bitcoin, had a massive price run-up in 2017, and that accounts for a boom in total daily trading volume from just over $1 billion in 2016 to $10.6 billion today. In 2016 there were 105 cryptocurrency exchanges, compared to 213 today.

Bitcoin June futures on the Cboe traded down about 1.9% in the noon hour Wednesday to $7,355, after opening at $7,495 this morning. Since futures trading began in March, the contracts have dropped by a third.

Nymex Bitcoin futures have lost more than 51% since futures trading began in January.