FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Spot volume on cryptocurrency exchanges reached an all-time high in December, reaching $379 billion and eclipsing the previous high reported in January 2018.

The data provided in the graph below tracks spot volumes from 20 of the largest crypto exchanges with reliable data. Of the approximately $379.3 billion, Binance accounted for about $219.5 billion while Coinbase accounted for about $45.7 billion. 

As noted by The Block’s Lars Hoffmann, the total volume for 2020 across legitimate crypto exchanges exceeded $1 trillion, clocking in at roughly $1.82 trillion for the 12-month period.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

December closed out 2020 with the second-highest volume to date for decentralized exchanges, or DEXs, according to data compiled by The Block Research.

The total volume for decentralized exchanges in December was $23.3 billion — a 36.5% increase from November.

Uniswap held the highest percentage at 54.9%, followed by Sushiswap (13.2%) and Curve (10.8%). December represented the first time that SushiSwap overtook Curve in monthly volume.

September of this year saw the highest DEX volume recorded, coming in at $26.3 billion.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bitcoin miners brought in nearly $700 million in revenue in December, according to data collected by The Block Research.

Of the $692.32 million in reported monthly revenue, $68.3 million came in the form of transaction fees. Users pay transaction fees to give their transactions a higher priority when waiting to be included in a block.

December’s figure was the highest for 2020 and represents the most revenue generated during a given period since January 2018. During that month, bitcoin miners brought in roughly $1 billion in revenue.

The month saw the price of bitcoin trading around $19,000 and move to nearly $30,000 per coin. Bitcoin surpassed that value on January 2.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Quick Take

• Total adjusted on-chain volume saw a strong increase of 33.5%, to a new two-year high of $272 billion in December.
• Adjusted on-chain volume of stablecoins increased by 20.8%, to a new all-time high of 178.3 billion in December.
• Centralized exchange spot trading volumes increased by 30.5%, to a new all-time high of 384 billion in December.
• Aggregated open interest and monthly volume of Bitcoin futures and options, and Ethereum futures and options, all reached new all-time highs in December.

This research piece is available to
members of The Block Genesis.
You can continue reading
this Genesis research on The Block.

Three Arrows Capital has disclosed a more than $1 billion position in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust in a new filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The move by the Singapore investment firm follows a similarly large position in the trust placed earlier this year to capitalize on the premium at which it trades relative to bitcoin. Previously, the firm held 6.26% of GBTC shares, worth $259 million.

According to the most recent filing, the firm’s position represents $1.24 billion. The firm’s current position represents 36,969 bitcoin, or 6.1% of GBTC’s holdings.

“We continue to enjoy working with the Grayscale team and look forward to investing more in the crypto ecosystem,” said Kyle Davies, co-founder of Three Arrows Capital.

According to Three Arrows, the position is the largest in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust. In lockstep with bitcoin’s surge in price, the assets managed by Grayscale across its product suite have surged. Its GBTC product offers investors a way for investors to obtain exposure themselves to bitcoin through a vehicle that’s structured as a security.

According to data from The Block, the trust’s holdings top 607,000 BTC.

The product’s shares typically trade at a high premium — which allows traders to execute an arbitrage trade by borrowing shares of the trust. GBTC’s weekly premium has tightened over the last several years, standing at 18% — down from more than 100% in the summer of 2017.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.