Cryptoexchanges Caught Falsifying their Trading Volumes

By Vinay Nair

A new report by Blockchain Transparency Institute, a group of Blockchain Data researchers stated to bring transparency and honesty to the Crypto-industry, in their latest crypto exchange rankings have revealed key findings concerning trading volume, liquidity and visitor count of about 100+ exchanges.

The List has Binance with by far the largest unique visitor per day count easily the top player of the new exchange rankings list, Bitfinex comes in at number 2 with a high volume per user figure as this exchange is known to be a landing spot for top dollar accounts with its minimum $10,000 sign up.

Coinbase trails behind at number 3 position and is also the Top ranked crypto exchange in the USA.

The report claims that the research was made possible with the help of tools like Similarweb and Google Analytics.  

Out of the total 1700 sites reviewed, only sites with 100k-500k monthly visitors had an average accuracy difference of 23%, i.e. 3,333 to 16,667 unique visitors/day, and those with over 1Mn monthly visitors had an average accuracy difference around 11%, i.e. 33,333+ unique visitors/day.

Also, Sites with under 100K monthly visitors had an overestimate by an average accuracy difference of 94%, i.e. Less than 3,333 unique visitors (Daily). Hence the exchanges with more unique visitors/month are likely to have the most customers and would mean more daily traders and higher volumes.

The exchanges who are under suspicion have a ratio of up to over 655,000%.  The best examples are LBANK and ZB, both having a volume/unique visitors at over $214,000 and $74,000 per day, respectively.  Such indices are not convincing since the Top 3 exchanges – Binance, Bitfinex and Coinbase with high liquid markets falls only between $5,000 and $8,500 per visitor per day.

Other suspect exchanges in the top 10 include well-established crypto exchanges like Huobi and Okex estimated to be faking 80-90% of their total volume bringing their actual totals close to $100,000,000/24h.

By Volume, an estimated $6 Bn dollars is traded daily of which upto 67% is being wash traded, and over 70% of the top 100 exchanges are engaged in wash trading by at least three times their actual stated volume. Find the full report here.