Much of reported cryptocurrency trading volume is likely fake | Hacker News Reader

Much of reported cryptocurrency trading volume is likely fake

theblockcrypto.com

66 pointsmarban15 comments

I would not draw same conclusion.

The website visit figures are estimates by SimilarWeb. I never heard of them, but would take their estimates with a grain of salt until proven otherwise.

Next, flagging volume fake just because average volume per estimated visit is high? That's a leap I would not make. Some sites cater to market makers who have larger volumes and trade over API.

What about dark pool trades where one exchange does publish the figures while the other does not?

Also, what is fake? Reporting volume without the actual volume of reported trades adding up to the reported value? Or are some trades fake? If the trades are fake, are they wash trades? Is the exchange the counter-party in these trades?

I am unable to trust this analysis.

I agree the evidence and reasoning is pretty shaky, but the conclusion isn't exactly surprising. See report from a few months ago with more rigor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19465606

OpenMarketcap's aim is to track cryptocurrencies without fake volume by having a process to vet, identify and pull data only from trusted exchanges: https://openmarketcap.com/exchanges

Listing Bitfinex who runs Tether doesn't seem all that trustworthy.

Won't there be significant volume from automated trading and market makers who dont need to visit websites in order to trade?

For a long time you didn’t even need two accounts to wash trade on Bitfinex, it would match two orders from the exact same account. So of course a lot of the volume is fake, the question is how much?

That's ridiculously awful.

"up to". OK so it could be 1%, or it could be 86%.

okay I can tell this...one of my recent still uncontrolled adhd failures..

I did not have my adhd under control well enough last year to explain why the Bitcoin economic value model was factually incorrect..most of you now know that the economic model once touted failed to take into consideration....

ie that the growth of internet in terms of chasm between early adopters and mainstream would be exactly the same for crypto coin...the fly in the cake was that the chasm between early and mina stream adopters of crypto coin is in fact very different from internet site user growth..

In short terms bitcoin value economic model wrong due to no data on the chasm between early adopters and main stream.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com