Amberdata Digital Assets Snapshot: Regulatory Shifts, Trading Volume Analysis, & More

In regulatory news, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed to drop its case against DebtBox "without prejudice.” The case is significant since the regulator received several criticisms after getting an emergency warrant to freeze corporate assets, which led the federal judge to question the agency on allegations they provided false and misleading evidence. The SEC could see sanctions, though they argue that dismissing the case is sanction enough.

In Europe, rumors abound of the European Commission (EC) publishing a report labeling Bitcoin as environmentally harmful and a threat to “energy security.” The EC appears to be pushing to ban Bitcoin miners and discourage Bitcoin investment through ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) measures.

Spot Market

Centralized Exchange (CEX) comparisons from weeks 1/23/2024 and 1/30/2024

Total spot trading volume for key BTC pairs over the last three years

Centralized exchange trading volume has been in a state of recovery over the last three years, with peaks in the second half of 2022 caused by the major waves of exchange and fund collapses, bankruptcies, and regulatory action. As we entered the new year with the Bitcoin ETF approvals, we’ve seen a slight bump in trading volume on key BTC trading pairs (BTC/USD, BTC/USDT, and BTC/USDC) but we’re still very far from recovering.

Trading volume for the top traded pairs over the last three months

Key trading tokens over the last three months have remained consistent, with SOL trending on pace if not outpacing ETH, and BTC leading the charge. XRP still remains in the top 5 tokens, however with a hack of over $112 million against one of the Ripple co-founders, it’ll be interesting to see how the market reacts.

DeFi DEXs

Decentralized Exchange (DEX) protocol from weeks 1/23/2024 and 1/30/2024

Overall DEX trading volume over the last 3 years

Echoing their centralized counterparts, DEX trading volume also has yet to reach the heights of 2022, but continue to grow on top of levels in 2021.

Top traded pools on DEXs over the last week and quarter

Interestingly, the WBTC craze has dropped off over the last few weeks and trading volume appears to be slowly fading away with the token volume dropping down to 4th most active trading pair.

DeFi Borrow/Lend

DeFi Lending protocol comparisons from weeks 1/23/2024 and 1/30/2024

Total volume deposited and withdrawn across DeFi Lending protocols

With some aspects of crypto beginning to normalize after the chaotic start of the year, DeFi lending protocols have been fairly stable over the last few weeks with recent days showing a slight increase in daily withdrawals.

Total volume borrowed and repaid across DeFi Lending protocols

On the borrowing side, we saw last week's borrow volumes beginning to increase along with several airdrop opportunities coming to fruition across several networks. More recently, however, these loans are starting to come back to the platform.

DeFi Lending top borrowed tokens by volume’s daily address count

Most activity remains concentrated on WETH and stablecoins, however, GHO is an interesting standout, making the top five pools for borrowers based on address count. GHO is Aave’s new stablecoin created to help the protocol boost liquidity and improve utility while also providing some competition for MakerDAO’s DAI stablecoin.

Networks

Network comparisons from weeks 1/23/2024 and 1/30/2024

Network transactions over the last three months

Bitcoin transactions continue to outpace Ethereum despite the network’s jump in activity after the Bitcoin ETF approvals as liquidity moved back from Bitcoin to Ethereum (and BTC to ETH). Bitcoin Ordinals have also not slowed down in adoption or hype with several ordinal projects gaining traction not seen since the NFT craze in previous years.

Network transaction fees over the last year

Network fees have also been returning to more normal levels since the ETF approvals, despite expectations for an Ethereum ETF within the year.

Links

Recent from Amberdata

• Amberdata: Strategies for Mitigating Impermanent Loss Across Uniswap v3
• Amberdata: Amberdata Launches Profit and Loss Insights Across Uniswap v3 and Lending Protocols

• Amberdata: AD Derivatives Podcast Featuring Nick Forster, Co-Founder at Lyra!

• Benzinga: EXCLUSIVE: Spot Ethereum ETF Could Unlock 'Full-Scale, Global Adoption,' Experts Tell Benzinga
• Coindesk: ​​Ether Options Out of Sync With Bullish Sentiment on Street

Spot Market

Spot market charts were built using the following endpoints:

• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/market-metrics-exchanges-volumes-historical
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/market-metrics-exchanges-assets-volumes-historical
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/get-market-pairs

• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/get-historical-ohlc

Futures

Futures/Swaps charts were built using the following endpoints:

• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/futures-exchanges-pairs
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/futures-ohlcv-historical
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/futures-funding-rates-historical
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/futures-long-short-ratio-historical
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/swaps-exchanges-reference
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/swaps-ohlcv-historical
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/swaps-funding-rates-historical

DeFi DEXs

DeFi DEX charts were built using the following endpoints:

• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/defi-dex-liquidity
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/defi-dex-metrics
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/defi-impermanent-loss 

DeFi Borrow/Lend

DeFi lending charts were built using the following endpoints:

• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/defi-lending-protocol-lens
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/defi-lending-asset-lens

Networks

Network charts were built using the following endpoints:

• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/blockchains-metrics-latest
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/transactions-metrics-historical
• https://docs.amberdata.io/reference/get-historical-transaction-volume