Crypto Derivatives Monthly Volumes Hit New All-Time High
This week CryptoCompare data shows the price of Bitcoin (BTC) moved from around $10,100 to a $10,540 high before enduring a minor correction. The cryptocurrency is trading at $10,340 at press time.
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, started the week around $340 and moved up throughout it until it hit a $380 high. Since then its price dropped to $360 in a correction felt across the entire crypto market.
A total of $711.7 billion worth of cryptocurrency derivatives products were traded in August, as volumes went up 53.6 per cent when compared to July. The figure represents a new all-time high for monthly derivatives trading volumes.According to CryptoCompare’s August 2020 Exchange Review, spot volumes also increased by 49.6 per cent last month to $944.9 billion, which means derivatives represented just over 40 per cent of the market share.
The top cryptocurrency derivatives trading platforms were Huobi, OKEx, Binance, and BitMEX. All these platforms saw their derivatives volumes climb up significantly, with Binance seeing the biggest rise of 74 per cent. These four cryptocurrency exchanges, the report notes, represented over 90 per cent of the derivatives volume throughout the month.
Deribit’s bitcoin options volumes remained steady compared to July, while the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s options contracts saw a volume increase of 8.4 per cent in August. CME’s bitcoin futures contracts saw a 36.3 per cent rise.
The same report notes that according to CryptoCompare’s Exchange Benchmark, Top-Tier exchanges – those graded AA-BB – traded a total of $529 billion in said month, representing 64 per cent of the space’s total spot volume.
While trading volumes in the cryptocurrency space have been increasing, support for cryptocurrency adoption has also seemingly been growing. Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey has, in an interview with Reuters, recently said he believes bitcoin is the “best manifestation” of a native currency for the internet:
During the interview, Dorsey noted that the internet is “built by everyone, and anyone can really change the course of it.” Bitcoin, he said, was built on the internet and has the “same patterns” as anyone can contribute to the development of the cryptocurrency.
The CEO did mention nonetheless that there are a few barriers holding back bitcoin’s adoption. These include transaction times and efficiency. To him, BTC needs to be built in a way “that it is as intuitive, it’s as fast, and is as efficient as what exists today.”
Square, the payment company Dorsey created, has invited other crypto firms to join its Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a non-profit that wants to stop firms from locking up useful crypto technologies using patents. The goal of COPA is to see members make their patents freely available to all other members in a shared library.
Bitcoin’s acceptance as a payment method has also been growing. French-based users of the Just Eat food delivery service, which works in a way similar to Uber Eats, can now use BTC to pay for food delivered to their home. Bitcoin was added as a payment method after Takeaway.com acquired the service.
Hackers Fail to Crack Bitcoin Wallet Containing $700 million
Cryptocurrency exchanges and users are known to be targeted by hackers, as the pseudonymous nature of cryptoassets makes it easier for criminal purposes. While common attack methods include social engineering and phishing attacks to compromise users and exchanges, cracking a wallet that’s freely available isn’t as easy.
Over the last two years, hackers have been trying to access the seventh-largest bitcoin wallet, with 69,730 BTC ($723 million) in it. The CTO of the cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, Alon Gal, has revealed hackers have been passing around the wallet in an attempt to crack its password.
Various websites are selling the wallet.dat file for 0.08929505 BTC – over $1,000 – to hackers who want to try and crack it. The file is protected by a password. It’s worth noting that Gal pointed out it’s possible to forge wallets, meaning the wallet.dat file could be for an empty wallet, and not for the seventh-largest wallet containing over $700 million of BTC.
Crypto AM: Market View in association with Ziglu
