State of cryptocurrency markets
2020–07–08
The second quarter of this year has ended with Bitcoin far exceeding the returns of every asset class. The cryptocurrency decided to cling closely to the movements of America’s largest stock index, the S&P 500, during the financial market downturn seen this year. But Bitcoin’s extreme correlation to global markets have since subsided, albeit still higher than ever before. Zubr runs data numbers for 2Q20 in this week’s issue of state of cryptocurrency markets.
Bitcoin 30-day rolling volatility has come down to over a one-year low now hovering at the 1.5% mark as markets continue to try and find a direction. The king of cryptocurrencies has been bobbing its head between the 9–10k range for well over a month now and has yet to break out in any formative direction.
Low periods of volatility in Bitcoin don’t last very long before markets get roiled up again. The longest period that 30-day rolling volatility was held under 1.5% as it stands today was in 2016 when it lasted for a full two-month period from the end of August till the end of October. And looking at the same metric since 2010, Bitcoin has only managed to hold this level of volatility for a total of 279 days.
Bitcoin Futures Volume fell to a 2020 low in June following the extended period of lower volatility. Total volume seen across major derivative exchanges and institutional products such as CME and Bakkt fell to $332bn. This is still nearly 20% higher than that seen only a year ago. With that being said, however, this does represent a 40% drop from May 2020’s all time high that hit a whopping $557bn in total trading volume.
Bitcoin’s Open-Interest of futures however is seeing a healthy recovery from the plummets of March now hovering just under the $4bn mark, double that seen from this year’s low.
