Binance Remains Biggest Crypto Platform, Volume of Exchanges in Korea Surge

[Pegasus]

Blockchain Transparency Institute released the global crypto exchange rankings of November, ranking Binance at the top with a 24-hour volume of $1 billion.

With more than 160,000 24-hour web users, Binance easily surpassed OKEx, the second largest crypto exchange in the market, in terms of the number of active users, volume, mobile volume, web visitors, and API volume.

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In comparison to Binance’s $1 billion daily volume and 160,000 daily users, OKEx achieved $700 million in daily volume from merely 30,000 users.

Exchanges Prey on Low Market Cap Coins
Throughout the past two years, since the rise in popularity of initial coin offering (ICO) projects, opaque listing fees and suspiciously high volumes of small market cap tokens have led to the initiation of controversial debates.

Beginning last month, as CCN reported, Binance has started to donate all of the listing fees it receives from projects to charity, partially to demonstrate the potential of crypto in transparently and efficiently financing charitable events and initiatives.

But, the Blockchain Transparency Institute team and its researchers have stated that many exchanges are still targeting low market cap coins with irresistible offers to manufacture fake volume and trading activity with the intent of increasing hype around listed coins on market data platforms like CoinMarketCap.

“We also found many of these exchanges to be preying on low market cap coins which are desperate for the recognition and volume of a top 10 or 25 exchange. In many of the crypto projects we spoke with, this also involves supplying the exchange with a large amount of tokens which are then used to massively inflate volume numbers on CMC, luring in prospective traders from other exchanges with much lower, but real volume,” the team said.

Leveraging their volume, the Blockchain Transparency Institute stated that top exchanges have been requesting high listing fees in the range of 5 BTC to 60 BTC.

In the months to come, influenced by the efforts of leading exchanges like Binance and South Korea’s Shinhan Bank-backed Gopax to legitimize the market, questionable practices in the cryptocurrency exchange market are expected to decline over time.

“Our initial report on exchange volumes revealed many top 100 exchanges on Coinmarketcap using wash trading to gain a marketing advantage over their competitors. We found many of these exchanges gaining 80-90% of their referral web traffic from CMC alone. In our recent token project interviews, we have found this allows these exchanges to ask from 5 BTC all the way up to 60 BTC for listing fees.”

Exchanges in South Korea Improve
Throughout the past 24 months, Binance, OKEx, and Huobi solidified their positions as the three largest exchanges in the world.

Bithumb and Upbit, two of the biggest trading platforms in South Korea, have recently entered the top 10, possibly due to an increase in the demand for cryptocurrencies in the country has portrayed by a significant increase in the volume of the Bitcoin-to-Korean won trading pair.

Recently, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) commissioner Choi Jung-gu stated that banks are permitted to work with cryptocurrency exchanges in providing banking services, and the approval of the FSC could lead to an increase in trading activity in the local market.

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