After experiencing the upsurge of NFT, non-Ethereum public chain, on-chain storage and other sectors, investors turned their attention back to the trading sector. The good news in asset trading this week has continued: BTG (Bitcoin Gold) announced its cooperation with Phala Network to build a cross-chain bridge between the Bitcoin network and the Polkadot network, KuCoin Exchange announced the introduction of Stellar deposit and withdrawal services, and the Indian Exchange WazirX announced the launch of the NFT trading market, the first time for a centralized exchange. Stimulated by a lot of good news, trading-related tokens rose as a whole.
Bitcoin Callback, Ethereum New High
Bitcoin and Ethereum no longer advance at the same time, at least for now.
Obviously, the market’s interest in Bitcoin trading is further declining: as of Apr. 9, the weekly trading volume of Bitcoin spot was only 56.5 billion U.S. dollars, while the weekly trading volume of perpetual contracts was 410.6 billion U.S. dollars, a decrease of more than 10%. The decline for Bitcoin was sustained and obvious; while Ethereum was the complete opposite, spot and perpetual contract trading volumes increased by 32.29% and 47.60%, respectively.
The volatility data further showed some additional signals.
Whether it is a Bitcoin spot or perpetual contract, its historical volatility has been in a continuous downward trend, and it is now close to 50, a new low this year. The price stability means that speculators are gradually decreasing, but it also means that as speculators gradually lose interest in Bitcoin, the vitality of the market has declined.
The Ethereum market remains dynamic: the volatility has begun to “bottom up,” and the overall volatility level remains above 60, which is much higher than Bitcoin. In addition, from the perspective of options trading in the past week, small option contracts have become the main force in the allocation of rights in this cycle, which confirms the recent activity in the Ethereum market: most small option allocators are individual investors. When option allocation occupies the absolute mainstream, market enthusiasm is often relatively sufficient.
XRP Soars and the Trading Token Sector Takes the Lead
When Ripple was sued by the SEC, almost all investors believed that this project, which once occupied the fourth largest market capitalization in the digital asset market, had seen its end. However, its token XRP, after experiencing a drop to US$0.25, has risen to more than US$1 since February, breaking a record high since 2021. At the peak of the daily trading volume, it also reached US$10.21 billion with the price surge.
As one of the leaders in the payment and transaction industry, Ripple’s successful “resurrection” has driven the long-silent trading token sector to rise. Whether it is cross-chain, high-speed trading public chain or exchange new business, the corresponding tokens are greatly stimulated up. As of 5:30 pm on Apr. 9, the total market value of XRP reached US$46.79 billion, an increase of 78.09% compared to last week. The market value distribution of exchange certificates KCS and STX reached US$1.1 billion and US$2.2 billion, and the best performing token is Bitcoin Gold, which has recently announced to join the Bitcoin-Polkadot cross-chain project. Although it is only a legacy of the Bitcoin hard fork that year, the current token price of the project is affected by cross-chain benefits. The current market value is close to 2 billion US dollars. This is an increase of 174.75% from last week.
Trading is the core of the digital asset market, and related certificates can be regarded as long-term investment targets. However, because the short-term performance is often inferior to project certificates such as NFTs, its related transactions have been ignored by investors, especially individual investors. However, a large number of blue chip tokens are hidden in trading tokens, so dividing a part of the investment portfolio into non-mainstream trading tokens for long-term holding may have a positive effect on optimizing the long-term performance of the investment portfolio.