Cryptocurrency exchanges recorded a sharp increase

Large cryptocurrency exchanges recorded a significant increase in users this month. It is, in particular, about Kraken, OKEx, Bitfinex, Paxful and Luno. In some cases, the flow of new users has doubled compared to normal conditions, and in some even tripled.

Kraken Exchange recorded an increase in new registrations by 83%. In addition, 300% more users passed the so-called intermediate verification in order to be able to instantly deposit assets in fiat currency.

Kraken strategist Pierre Rocheard believes that the observed dynamics can be explained not by the desire of people to entertain themselves during quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic, but by fleeing from the traditional financial system.

“Western authorities are having difficulty restraining COVID-19 and plunging cities and peoples into blank quarantine. Against this background, people feel an urgent need to leave the centralized financial system, ”he said. “They cannot protest on the streets, so they are protesting with bitcoin.”

Since the beginning of March, the growth in Paxful peer-to-peer registrations has been 100%. Luno has seen a 50% increase in the number of new users over the past four weeks.

Luno CEO Marcus Swanepoel said:

“The current pandemic has created significant uncertainty in most, if not all, sectors. Confidence in cryptocurrencies at this time is encouraging, and many traders are steadfast. ”

A similar situation is observed by the Bitfinex exchange.

“Our data show that in the second half of March, when strict restrictive measures were introduced in many countries, the growth in the number of new accounts was 30%,” the representative of Bitfinex said.

The number of new users on the OKEx exchange is also growing. Director of Financial Markets OKEx Lenniks Lai noted that the reason for this was not only a coronavirus, but also a decrease in the price of bitcoin.

While users join cryptocurrency exchanges, assets are sent in the opposite direction. According to Glassnode, the amount of bitcoins withdrawn from exchanges is steadily growing, and the balance of exchange wallets reached an eight-month low on March 26.

The withdrawal of funds was reflected in the volume of Bitcoin trading. It reached a peak on March 13 at around $ 74 billion, and on Monday fell to a minimum of this month about $ 28 billion, which is 20% less than in early March. Paxful, despite a sharp increase in the number of new users, recorded a decrease in revenue by 10%.

At the same time, traders continue to enter more stable assets. According to Viewbase, $ 223 million in the Tether stablecoin went to cryptocurrency exchanges only in the last week.

It was previously noted that Tether’s capitalization exceeded $ 6 billion.