BitMEX, the most active futures market, is slowing down as it grinds towards the end of the year. The BTC volume on the exchange has now dropped to the lowest levels in 2019.
BitMex Slows Activity to Levels of November 2018
The current BTC volumes resembles the situation of November 2018, when BTC stagnated and started to drop significantly to new lows. BitMEX volumes in general predict interest in BTC, and this time, social media comments have called the market “lifeless”:
Lowest daily volume of 2019 just printed on Bitmex today.
This market is officially lifeless.
Note: Volume is in BTC terms. Bitmex uses BTC as margin collateral, and realized profits and losses are in BTC, thus BTC volume is a better metric than USD volume IMO. pic.twitter.com/ym4OB04Tvv
— CL (@CL207) November 17, 2019
BitMEX reflected growing interest in BTC in the summer months, when for a while open interest had several occasions of exceeding $1 billion. But now, BitMEX posts volumes just around 41.13 million. The BTC price is also trading at a discount, at $8,545, while other exchanges see the spot price above $8,600.
BTC is now entering a scenario where a death cross could be easily achieved, seeing the price once again seek lows under $8,000. The entire crypto market has seen its volumes slide, down to around $60 billion in 24 hours, from above $100 billion in the past weeks.
On-Chain Activity and Coin Flows Slow Down
Spot volumes also fell for BTC, down to $17 billion in 24 hours. But a dramatic shift has happened to the trading composition. More than 85% of the volumes are against Tether (USDT), up from 75% in the past few weeks. Such a prevalence of USDT trades is often observed during sell-offs.
BTC activity in general has slowed down, including movements of funds to and from exchanges. After a few months of rallying, BTC is starting to lag. On-chain activity is slowing down, which is not unusual during the weekend, and especially after a recent 1-Satoshi transaction backlog.
📢 24H #BTC Network Stats:
💲 Price: $8487.69 (-0.8%)
💵 $BTC On-Chain Volume: $3B (-45.3%)
👈 Active Senders: 427K (-12.9%)
👉 Active Recipients: 484K (-15.9%)Visit https://t.co/u90eafzR5J for more info
— TokenAnalyst (@thetokenanalyst) November 17, 2019
Exchanges still mark a net inflow from last week, which may signal readiness to dump BTC on the market.
🚨Weekly BTC exchange flow:
📉 Inflow: $1.2B, -10.5% from last week
📉 Outflow: $1.1B, -17.7% from last week
📈 Net flow: $101.5M
📉 #BTC price: $8496.90, -3.4% from last week#binance #bitmex #bitfinex #bitstamp #bittrex #poloniex #kraken #huobiMore @ https://t.co/u90eafzR5J pic.twitter.com/CEG1cueA2Z
— TokenAnalyst (@thetokenanalyst) November 17, 2019
BTC for now kept above $8,500, despite a late Friday sell-off. The price temporarily sank to $8,473.97 on November 16, later recovering by more than $200. BTC 100 day and 200 day averages crossed to signal stagnation. At this point, there are different predictions for the price action, with the potential to break above $9,000 again, or break down to as low as $7,400.
What do you think about the slowdown of BTC activity? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Images via Shutterstock, Twitter @CL207 @thetokenanalyst
