Report reveals that over half of reported Bitcoin trading was fake

Although almost all cryptocurrency companies have been impacted by the market slump, a recent analysis by Forbes shows that nearly 51% of the reported Bitcoin trade volume is “bogus” and fraudulent. This implies that the market’s impact in 2022 may have been far more than initially anticipated.

The Forbes study claims that the trade volume indicated by cryptocurrency exchanges or e-brokerage reports is fictitious in order to keep investors’ confidence in a gloomy market. The crypto market’s liquidity problem is serious and has brought down a number of important exchanges.

Notably, Bitcoin (BTC) accounts for about 40% of the entire cryptocurrency market, while Ethereum (ETH) accounts for nearly 20%.

Are people really embracing Bitcoin?

While there are many reasons why people embrace Bitcoin, its detractors contend that the market has been manipulated as a result of wash trading and lax regulatory oversight of exchanges.

To determine the real trading volume of the top cryptocurrency across these exchanges and if they are truly liquid or only make that claim, the study conducted a thorough investigation and assessed more than 157 crypto exchange platforms worldwide. It stated:

“More than half of all reported trading volume is likely to be fake or non-economic. Forbes estimates the global daily bitcoin volume for the industry was $128 billion on June 14. That is 51% less than the $262 billion one would get by taking the sum of self-reported volume from multiple sources.”

The report claims that Tether stablecoin, which has maintained a market valuation of $68 billion, continues to be the leading player in the cryptocurrency industry. The next 33 exchanges saw trade volume between $200 million and $999 million across all contract types, including spot, futures, and perpetual, while 21 cryptocurrency exchanges generated over $1 billion in daily trading activity.

Binance, FTX, and OKX all hold the top spot pricing positions for Bitcoin, while Chicago-based CME Group dominates the market for bitcoin futures trading.

According to a report, the total amount of crypto exchanges under regulatory supervision accounts for about $89 billion of the total volume they claim to be responsible for. Last but not least, the study found that 573 million people visit websites for cryptocurrency exchanges each month.