In its April 2019 Exchange Review, released on May 20, 2019, London-based crypto data analysis firm CryptoCompare found that fiat-to-crypto exchanges performed much better than crypto-to-crypto platforms did over the last month, as cryptocurrency prices rose across the board.
According to the report, fiat-to-crypto exchanges enjoyed an impressive 85 percent uptick in monthly trading volumes in April 2019. Bithumb, UPbit and Bitfinex were the highest performing of these, with volumes amounting to $17 billion, $8.7 billion and $6.7 billion, respectively.
It’s worth noting that Bitfinex was found to within the top-three of fiat-to-crypto exchanges, holding off strong competition from the likes of Kraken and Coinbase. The exchange is currently embroiled in a legal squabble with the Office of New York’s Attorney General, after it was accused of misappropriating funds from its Tether reserves as a means of covering up as much as $850 million in undocumented losses.
Meanwhile, crypto-to-crypto exchange volume increased by only 57 percent. While still a positive sign, this lag behind fiat-to-crypto volume may indicate that investors are more interested in amassing more cryptocurrency, rather than converting one type of crypto asset into another, in this particularly bullish market.
The report revealed that FCoin, a platform based in China, saw a massive 300 percent increase in volume in April, ending the month with $37.1 billion in trades. Hong Kong-based OKEx was second on the list of crypto-to-crypto exchanges, conducting $35.1 billion in trades, and the third spot was held by ZB with $32.4 billion in trade volume.
In total, April saw a 49 percent increase in volumes across exclusively crypto-paired exchanges, as $396 billion was traded. Crypto-to-fiat trading pairs saw a 25 percent increase, holding strong at $72 billion, while crypto-to-crypto volumes held 84.5 percent of the total spot volume for the month.