Bitcoin Trades Below $25K as Rivals Falter: wMarket Update

• Cryptocurrency market cap stayed flat in the last 24 hours, with Bitcoin increasing by 1.65% and Ethereum decreasing by 0.50%.
• Tether (USDT) market cap increased to $74.47 billion while Binance USD (BUSD) remained flat at $8.34 billion and USD Coin (USDC) decreased to $37.49 billion.
• Prom was the top gainer with 35.28% increase, followed by Gains Network and Mask Network which rose 20.34% and 12.94%, respectively.

CryptoSlate wMarket Update

The wMarket Update condenses the most important price movements in the crypto markets over the reporting period, published 07:45 ET on weekdays.

Overall Market Performance

In the last 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market cap remained flat at 1.09 trillion despite declining by around 0.16% during the reporting period.

Bitcoin market cap increased by 1.65% to $482.10 billion, while Ethereum’s market cap decreased by 0.50% to $203.92 billion, respectively.

All top 10 cryptocurrencies recorded losses in the last 24 hours, except Bitcoin and BNB, which rose 1.59% and 2.8%, respectively.

Stablecoins

In the last 24 hours, the market cap of Tether (USDT) increased to $74

Binance Dominates Crypto Exchange Market Despite FUD: 61.8% Share!

• Binance is the world’s largest centralized crypto exchange, increasing its share of the business from 59.4% to 61.8%.
• Zero fee Bitcoin trading has been a significant contributing factor for Binance’s success.
• Despite global expansion efforts, FUD still surrounds the exchange as regulators increase scrutiny.

Binance Dominates Crypto Exchange Market

According to new data, Binance is the world’s largest centralized crypto exchange, with its share of the business increasing from 59.4% in January to 61.8% in February. This surge in spot volumes was largely attributed to Binance introducing zero-fee Bitcoin trading on 13 spots pairs back in July 2022.

Competitors Struggle To Keep Up

Despite this impressive growth, competitors are struggling to keep up with Coinbase seeing a 29% decrease in traded volume ($39.9 billion) and Kraken experiencing an 11% drop ($19.3 billion). OKX and Bybit followed behind with 14% and 13.3% market share respectively.

Zero Fee Trading Impactful

The introduction of zero-fee Bitcoin trading no doubt had a major impact on Binance’s success; since BTC represents a substantial portion of the crypto market’s trade volume, removing fees has had a huge effect on their dominance of spot trading volume market share across derivative exchanges grew to 62.9%, which is their highest monthly market share ever recorded for them.

Binance Intensifies Global Expansion

In spite of bear markets, Binance is intensifying its global expansion efforts by registering as a Financial Service Provider in New Zealand and other countries like South Korea and Japan resulting in an influx of new traders for the exchange hence enhancing its dominance in trading volume among others .

Regulatory Scrutiny Growing However news that regulators are starting to intensify their scrutiny has created fear uncertainty and doubt surrounding Binance though Changpeng Zhao (Binace co-founder & CEO) said that focus shifts more towards product development , refinement & education as volumes rise .

BTC Short-Term Holders: Realized Price Above 2019 Levels

Summary

  • For the first time since May 5, 2019, the short-term holder realized price is above-realized price.
  • This same event also occurred in the 2015 bear market on Nov. 3, 2015.
  • The Bitcoin price must remain above $20,000 in the short term to increase the cost basis of the STH cohort.

Background

Bitcoin is currently going through a bear market cycle which has been seen previously. The metric used to measure this bear market is called Realized Price which reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for the entire coin supply. This can be subdivided into two more metrics: Short-Term Holder (STH) Realized Price and Long-Term Holder (LTH) Realized Price. STH Realized Price reflects coins held outside exchange reserves that were moved within last 155 days and LTH Realized Price reflects coins held outside exchange reserves that have not moved within last 155 days.

Significance

For the first time since May 5, 2019, this current bear market cycle has seen STH realized price exceed realized price. This same event also occurred in 2015’s bear market on Nov. 3, 2015 as well. At present, STH realized price is at $19,892 while realized price is at $19,850; thus it is important for Bitcoin’s price to stay above $20K in order for STH cost basis to increase. In addition, if STH realized price manages to get higher than LTH realized prices — which are currently a difference of $3K — then this could signal an end to this bear market cycle.

Analysis

In order to accurately assess what effect this could have on Bitcoin’s future performance it will be important to closely monitor both STH and LTH realized prices over upcoming weeks and see if any further developments occur or whether there will simply be no change in momentum due to different factors such as increased selling pressure or increased buying pressure from institutional investors etc. It should also be noted that even though these metrics can provide some insight into how certain parts of crypto markets work they do not tell us anything about how general sentiment surrounding cryptocurrencies may or may not be changing over time as those changes are much harder to accurately measure without additional data sources being taken into account such as investor sentiment surveys etc.

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It appears that for now at least we have seen STH realize prices exceed current realize prices which could signal a potential end for this bear market cycle but only time will tell if that prediction turns out correct or incorrect based on further developments over upcoming weeks and months. In addition it should also be kept in mind that these metrics merely represent one small part of broader cryptocurrency markets so their relevance might become limited depending upon what else happens around them in terms of investors sentiment etcetera