Crypto Trading Volume Falls 43% in Q2

Crypto trading fell by nearly half (43%) as Q1 gave way to Q2 2023, according to a new report. April and May were particularly quiet months in people’s wallets, thanks to the lack of an overarching narrative, in the view of the report’s authors.

NFT trading volume also suffered a blow, declining by 35.0%, from $4.84 billion in Q1 to $3.15 billion in Q2. This comes on the heels of BeInCrypto stories detailing how weekly unique NFT traders currently stand in the hundreds. (According to data from Dune, the current number of unique wallets that have traded an NFT in the past week is a mere 120.)

A Crisis of Low Liquidity

Both figures—crypto trading and NFT trading—reflect the growing problem of low liquidity. Put simply: there is a growing risk that fewer buyers and sellers will make it increasingly difficult to execute trades at desired prices. 

However, the two kings of cryptocurrency, BTC and ETH both saw modest gains over the quarter. BTC rose by 6.9% while ETH rose by 6.0% in Q2. Both reflect a generally unexciting three months at the top of the crypto markets.

During the second quarter of 2023, the total spot trading volume on the top 10 centralized crypto exchanges (CEX) amounted to $1.42 trillion.

This represents a significant decrease of 43.2% compared to the previous quarter, as trading volumes failed to sustain their upward trend.

Meanwhile, only ByBit and BitGet saw any gains in trading volume. As the overwhelming majority of trading happens on CEXs, this is a sign of poor health for the industry.

Tether Consolidates Lead in Stablecoins

Meanwhile, the stablecoin market coalesced around the industry leader, Tether’s USDT, which increased its market cap by 4.4% ($3.48 billion). By the end of the second quarter of 2023, it had captured a 66% share of the stablecoin market.

According to the report, the combined market cap of the top 15 stablecoins decreased by $4.6 billion (3.5%). USD Coin (USDC) and Binance USD (BUSD) experienced a continued decline, with USDC losing $5.18 billion (15.9%) and BUSD losing $3.43 billion (45.4%) in market cap.

The quarter’s biggest stablecoin winner was True USD (TUSD) which added 50.0% ($1.02 billion) to its market cap. Binance‘s decision to make TUSD its default stablecoin and mint approximately $1 billion TUSD on the Tron network was a big boost for the coin.