China accounts for the most significant portion of cryptocurrency trading volume, according to a new study. In addition, Asia has the largest market share – it has the highest whale activity and therefore the largest deals.
The Chinese government has repeatedly stated that BTC is officially banned inside the country. Nevertheless, this state remains one of the largest and most important players in the development of the major cryptocurrency.
China is known to provide more than 60% of the BTC hash rate, which means that most of the miners are located in this country.
Analytics company Messari conducted a study that estimated the country’s level of dominance in numbers. In addition to having the largest pool of miners, the world’s most populous country has the largest crypto developer communities and is home to „the world’s three largest exchanges“.
Nevertheless, the study acknowledged that the government’s „hostile attitude“ towards the digital asset sector has caused local investors to hold fewer BTC. As a result, they have focused on larger and more frequent transactions.
However, this has not prevented Chinese exchanges from leading global markets in terms of trading volume.
„In East Asia (mainly China) there are predominantly large deals, 90% of which are above $10,000.
East Asia is involved in more short-term trades covering a wider range of assets compared to North America, where the focus is on long-term bitcoin positions.
It is worth noting that regulatory crackdowns on the industry and its prominent figures continue. In 2020, it was reported that China Merchant Bank froze bank accounts belonging to users involved in cryptocurrency activity.
In addition, the country’s authorities have taken OKEx’s founder into custody while they investigate his exchange.
Researchers from Messari also studied the behaviour of developers, investors and users across the Asian continent. In addition to the aforementioned dominance of China, other countries in the region – India, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore – have also grabbed a significant portion of the cryptocurrency pie.
„Since Asia is home to 60% of the world’s population, infrastructure companies from across the planet are keen to tap into the growing market. By the end of last year, six of the ten largest so-called crypto-unicorns in the world were in Asia.“
The study also states that „of the top 20 headquartered token projects, 42% of market capitalisation is in Asia“, data as of mid-January 2021.
Asian companies also dominate the futures markets. According to the study, such firms account for 98% of ETH futures trading and 94% of BTC futures trading.