On-chain data shows that derivatives exchanges have seen high activity as bitcoin climbed towards the $29,000 level.
The ratio of bitcoin trading volume to derivatives has been very low lately
As one analyst at CryptoQuant pointed out: mail, the latest price increase mainly driven by derivatives. The indicator of interest here is the “volume ratio,” which measures the ratio between bitcoin trading volume on spot exchanges and that on derivatives exchanges.
“Trading volume” here naturally refers to the total amount of cryptocurrency that investors are transacting/moving around on a platform or combination of platforms.
When the volume percentage value is high, it means that the spot exchanges see a lot more activity when compared to derivatives platforms. On the other hand, low values of the indicator indicate that derivative exchanges are the ones that are experiencing relatively high volume at the moment.
Now, here’s a chart showing the trend in the percentage of bitcoin trading volume over the past year:
The value of the metric seems to have been quite low in recent days | Source: CryptoQuant
As shown in the chart above, bitcoin volume fell back in March and has since moved sideways around very low levels.
This would indicate that there was little immediate market activity during this time, at least when compared to the volumes that derivatives exchanges were watching.
Interestingly, although the price of the asset registered a sharp jump towards the $29,000 level over the past day, the ratio failed to show any uptick, which means that spot volumes are still low relative to the derivatives activity.
This fact may indicate that the recent rally may in fact have received its strength from derivatives, rather than the spot market. Historically, it’s been the highs that started alongside higher spot trading volumes that are more likely to last for longer periods.
From the chart, it is clear that the Bitcoin price rally in January of this year started when the trading volume ratio was at a relatively high level.
Similarly, the rebound in March also started when the index saw a rally (although much smaller). As mentioned earlier, the gauge dropped shortly after this spike occurred and has been at lower levels ever since. At this time, BTC has not been able to register any sustained movement.
However, back in the day, things looked distinctly different, as the rapid price hike was unlike anything the asset had offered recently. However, the fact that spot volumes remain low means the rally “looks weaker compared to the strong spot-led rallies at $16,000 and $19,000,” according to the measure.
It now remains to be seen if the ratio will continue to drop in the coming days, or if a pickup in immediate activity will show after all.
BTC price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at around $29,100, up 12% in the past week.
Looks like BTC has seen a sharp uplift in the last 24 hours | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView
Featured image by Kanchanara on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, CryptoQuant.com
