If you log in to SANgraphs, our premium analytics platform, you’ll find a number of exchange-related metrics and charts, including Exchange Inflow/Outflow, 4 different Deposit metrics, 4 different Withdrawal metrics, % of token supply on exchanges etc.
So far, our focus was squarely on developing ‘umbrella’ metrics, compiling data from 120+ different exchanges and over 200 exchange wallets in the Ethereum network. Our latest set of exchange metrics, on the other hand, adds a much-needed granularity to analyzing exchange-bound activity.
Today we are releasing 6 new, exchange-specific metrics, which will let you filter our on-chain data for each individual trading platform.
Let’s dive right in!
Introducing: Exchange-specific Metrics
We can split our new exchange-based metrics into 2 broad categories:
General activity metrics, including:
- Number of daily active deposits per exchange
- Number of daily active withdrawals per exchange
Token-specific metrics (per exchange), including:
- Token-specific daily active deposits
- Token-specific daily active withdrawals
- Token-specific exchange flow balance
- Token-specific exchange inflow/outflow
As you can see, the first group is token-agnostic, and focuses on an exchange’s general on-chain activity. The second group of metrics breaks down a particular token’s activity on a particular exchange.
To use our new metrics, you will first need to specify a few parameters:
- Exchange – This is the individual exchange that you want to look into (e.g. Bitfinex, Binance, Upbit etc). Note: We may track multiple exchange wallets for any single exchange, to give you an aggregate picture of its activity
- Project – This is the project (token) whose activity you want to observe on a particular exchange (e.g. ETH, MKR, BAT etc). Note: we currently provide exchange activity data for 700+ ERC-20 projects (including Ethereum)
- Currency – at the moment you can choose between USD and BTC
With that out of the way, let’s cover the new charts individually:
General Activity Metrics
Our first two metrics show the total number of daily deposit and withdrawal addresses, respectively, for a particular exchange:
These charts can be used to compare the performance and on-chain activity of different exchanges over time, and evaluate their current popularity and demand. More daily deposits may also indicate higher liquidity, while a consistent growth in both deposits and withdrawals bodes well for the exchange’s adoption.
What’s also quite interesting is that the number of deposit and withdrawal addresses for some exchanges corresponds highly with the price of ETH over time.
Here’s Binance, for example:
Unsurprisingly, these charts also confirm that the world’s biggest exchange (by market cap) remains significantly less popular today that it was during the 2017-18 bull run: on average, the number of daily active deposits to Binance has dropped by ~300% since January 2018.
We can observe a similar pattern emerging on other big exchanges. For example, here’s Bittrex:
Also fascinating is the clearly charted, cyclical nature of exchange activity: for most platforms, the action drops to a weekly minimum on a Saturday and balloons right back up come Monday:
Our new graphs prove it – crypto traders work hard Mon-Fri and rest well over the weekend! 🙂
While insightful, the two General Activity metrics are unlikely to correlate with any specific coin’s price action (outside of BTC and ETH). For that, we turn to our second group of metrics:
Token-specific Metrics
Purpose-wise, these are quite similar to our existing, umbrella exchange metrics, the major difference being that these metrics filter our on-chain data per an individual exchange.
First. a few words about each metric:
- Token-Specific Daily Active Deposits (per Exchange) – shows the number of active deposit addresses of a selected exchange, filtered by a selected token. For example, the number of Bitfinex deposit addresses that engaged with the MKR token over time:
- Token-Specific Daily Active Withdrawals (per Exchange) – similar to deposits, shows the number of active withdrawal addresses of a selected exchange that engaged with a selected token. For example, the number of Bittrex withdrawal address that engaged with the REP token over time:
- Exchange Flow Balance – shows the total amount of a selected token moving to and away from a selected exchange on any given day. For example, the cumulative value of GNT moving in and out of Binance over time:
- Exchange Inflow/Outflow – breaks down the above metric to incoming and outgoing volumes of a selected token to/from a selected exchange. For example, the daily inflow and outflow of ETH to/from Bitstamp over time:
Use Cases
So how can you leverage these metrics in your everyday market analysis?
Let’s take KNC’s recent pump as an example. On March 10th, after gaining over 230% over the past 48 hours, KNC leapt to a 5-month high $0.385. And while it has definitely faltered since, the March 10th pump remains the sole reason why Kyber Network’s coin is still up 83% over the last 2 months.
Binance is one of the biggest exchanges for KNC enthusiasts, often accounting for the lion’s share of the token’s daily volume. Using our new metrics, let’s look at Binance-specific KNC data around the time of the pump.
We can clearly spot a significant spike in KNC’s exchange flow balance on Binance on February 10th, coinciding with the very beginning of the rally, and about a month prior to the top.
Looking at Binance’s KNC-specific deposit addresses on February 10th, we can see nothing too out of the ordinary, indicating that the spike in KNC inflow was likely prompted by a single entity (using one or several deposit addresses).
Consulting our Token Age Consumed graph for KNC, we can further conclude that this is unlikely a long-term HODLer:
All of this tells us that the February 10 spike could indicate preemptive market making, or someone ‘in the know’ about KNC’s upcoming trend. Either way, this elevated activity on February 10th on Binance would prove to kickstart the entire KNC rally, which finally peaked exactly one month later.
What’s also noteworthy is that the February 10th spike did little to stop the KNC uptrend. However, when the general public tried to capitalize on the pump a few weeks later (indicated by the two spikes in daily active deposits on Binance), the increased interest preceded a quick price retraction on both occassions.
Another extremely curious aspect of the story are the KNC Inflow/Outflow amounts on February 10th (initial spike) and March 10th (local top). The total amount deposited to Binance on February 10th is almost THE SAME amount withdrawn from Binance on March 10th!
Why the synchronicity? We’re still not entirely sure ourselves – it certainly isn’t due to the general populous finally getting in on the action, as you can see March 10th’s outgoing volume significantly dwarfing the incoming volume of KNC to Binance.
We’ll keep looking into this, but if you have any ideas let us know!
Compared to Binance, most other exchanges fared pretty stable in terms of KNC activity in the past few months. The only other outlier is Upbit, whose withdrawal volume between 6th and 10th of February comes pretty darn close to Binance’s incoming volume on February 10th (exceeding it by about 1.5M KNC). While a deeper dive is warranted, it seems possible that this is where most of Binance-bound KNC came from on February 10th:
Try our New Exchange Metrics!
In the end, this is just one example of how you can use our new exchange-specific metrics to inform your trading decisions and improve your general market know-how. As always, we can’t wait to see what additional use-cases you can come up with!
Our new metrics are now live on SANgraphs. You can find them under table #10, titled ‘Exchange-specific Analytics’. Happy hunting!
