BitMEX remains the market leader in crypto derivatives, but Binance is rapidly catching up with it

Crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX, once the undisputed leader in its field, is increasinglyforced to put up with the emergence of strong competition in the market.

According to the analytical service Skew, the numberBitMEX user base has been steadily declining over the past year. If before July the attendance of less than 20,000 people could be interpreted as a relatively quiet day at BitMEX, then after that it was a very successful one.

Other metrics indicate that this is the caseBitMEX is simply not going to give up. For example, the balance of its cold wallets still exceeds 200,000 BTC, down only slightly from its early 2019 peak, indicating continued user confidence.

This is not surprising, considering that onToday, BitMEX holds more than 34,000 BTC or about $ 320 million at its current rate in its insurance fund, thus having the largest coverage for securing customer transactions in the industry.

Liquidity of BitMEX Bitcoin contracts tooremains the highest for now, but in terms of this indicator, since the beginning of the year, the Binance exchange has been rapidly catching up with it, where the average spread between bid and offer for $10 million is 0.52% versus 0.18% for BitMEX. Exchanges like Deribit and bitFlyer show 2.27% and 4.42% respectively. Just yesterday, Binance announced the launch of a new market maker program on Binance Futures that is sure to further narrow the gap.

Average daily trading volumes on BitMEX are still in the billions of dollars, but over time, other exchanges, particularly Binance and FTX, are beginning to capture more of the market.

The second half of 2019 turned out to be for BitMEXdifficult. In July, it became known that the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission had initiated an investigation against it, and in November, it leaked user email addresses, while other exchanges were not asleep and were actively exploring the space of crypto-derivative trading.

“In general, BitMEX remains extremely stable, but competition is making itself felt,” analysts at skew conclude.

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