The most widely used trading pair on cryptocurrency exchanges at the moment is Tether, according to a study carried out by The Block Research.
Even though the trading volumes on crypto exchanges were dominated by Bitcoin a few years ago, the situation has changed significantly.
According to the data provided by the study, around 70% of the trading volumes of crypto exchange platforms are currently denominated in Tether (USDT). For its part, Bitcoin represents 15% of the trading volume, while other stablecoins are left with 4%.
It should be noted these figures were pretty different back in 2017, when Bitcoin hit its ATH of $20,000. At that time, the pairs with the largest crypto on the market represented around 50% of the trading volume on the platforms, while Tether only took 5% and 40% was denominated in USD.
It looks like the fact that most of the trading volumes were denominated in Bitcoin is related to BitMEX's dominance at that time, since the platform only accepted BTC as a collateral, so the dominance of the exchange in 2017 contributed to the reign of Bitcoin.
However, now other platforms such as OKEx, Huobi and Binance are increasingly gaining ground on BitMEX, and these support Tether as a collateral, which is the reason why the volume of USDT-denominated trading has increased dramatically.
BitMEX is not going through a good time. Just a few days ago it was known the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the US Department of Justice had filed charges against BitMEX, Hayes and other company execs earlier this month. Among other things, they are accused of breaking the law by registering a derivatives market as well as failing to comply with bank secrecy law requirements.
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