CoinGecko released its 2020 Q1 Cryptocurrency Report, found that Binance now dominates almost every metric available

By Selena On Apr 15, 2020

According to the 2020 Q1 Cryptocurrency Report from CoinGecko, Binance now dominates almost every metric available. Binance’s aggressive growth strategy seemed to be paying off in Q1 2020.

Highlights of Binance

Binance Futures gained the most in the derivatives market, accounting for a large share of the market. At one point, Binance even deposed BitMEX, as the top derivative exchange by Bitcoin Perpetual Swap trading volume. Its Bitcoin Perpetual Swap volume dominance increased from 22.9% to 38.0%.

Binance Future’s BTC Perpetual Futures dominates competitors in Q1 2020 | Source: Binance

In terms of spot trading, Binance consistently maintains 50% – 75% of the volume of Bitwise’s ten actual volume exchanges. Finally, in terms of web traffic, Binance has 29% of all web traffic to the top 20 crypto exchanges websites, which is about four times bigger than their nearest spot exchange rivals – Bithumb, Coinbase, and Upbit.

Binance maintaining 50-75% of volume amongst Bitwise 10 real volume exchanges | Source: Binance

Overall cryptocurrency market capitalization shrank by 5% as COVID-19 panic hit

The first quarter of 2020 is a difficult journey. Accordingly, the total crypto market capitalization has decreased by 5% and wiped all the profits earned at the beginning of the year between the COVID-19 pandemic. Bitcoin and many cryptocurrencies fell by over 40% on Black Thursday, 12 March 2020. Overall, the top 5 cryptocurrencies saw the following Q1 price changes: Bitcoin (-11%), Ethereum (+ 3%), XRP (-10%) , BCH (+ 7%), BSV (+ 70%). Bitcoin SV was the largest gainer as rumors spread of Craig Wright having access to Satoshi’s Bitcoin private keys.

Market cap shrank marginally as COVID-19 panic hits | Source: Binance

TM Lee, the co-founder of CoinGecko, stated:

“This quarter is one that we most definitely want to erase from memory. Not only was the world ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw massive losses in the traditional stock and crypto market. However, with every enormous drop in price, there is always an opportunity to buy cryptocurrencies for cheap. As we enter Q2, we hope that the COVID-19 situation will subside, and markets will improve.”

However, Bitcoin may not be a safe haven. One question loomed across the financial industry throughout the COVID-19 crisis: “Is Bitcoin a safe haven?”.

CoinGecko research found that:

“Bitcoin had a 30-days correlation of 0.9 to the S&P 500. As stocks declined, Bitcoin declined, but in a more severe manner.”

In a Twitter poll conducted by CoinGecko, 63% of Unsplash believe that Bitcoin is a safe haven. When compared to Gold, Bitcoin showed a positive 5-years correlation of 0.6, suggesting that this was a significant reason people believe in the long-term viability of Bitcoin as a safe haven similar to Gold.

Bitcoin may not be a Safe Haven | Source: Binance

In a survey of 700 crypto users conducted by CoinGecko, half of the participants who are familiar with DeFi said they would go utterly bankless as they do not trust the banking system. For decentralized applications brand awareness, the majority of participants said that they were most aware of Metamask, followed by Kyber Network. Tether was the most popular stablecoin held by the participants, followed by DAI.

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