 in the third quarter of 2024 was $3.05 trillion.){kind=link}
The crypto market has undergone a plethora of changes in the third quarter of 2024. A recent report by Coingecko highlights that the spot trading volume on the top ten centralized exchanges (CEX) in the third quarter of 2024 was $3.05 trillion. This indicates a quarter-over-quarter decline of about 14.8%.
With a 38% market share by the end of September 2024, Binance continued to be the biggest CEX. But this is the first time Binance has reported a market share below 40% since January 2022.
Crypto Market Capitalization Takes a Hit: Coingecko
The report also highlights that in Q3 2024, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies fell by 1.0% to $2.33 trillion, from $95.8 billion. Due to deterioration in the global economy, the market fell dramatically on August 6 after reaching a high of $2.61 trillion on July 22.
Despite the market decline, Bitcoin increased its dominance to 53.6% in the third quarter, a 2.7% Quarter-on-Quarter growth. Although it only had a slight 0.8% gain, this quarter saw a greater retreat of altcoins like Ethereum and BNB, which decreased their dominance. It wasn’t until April 2021 that Bitcoin was able to attain such supremacy.
Out of the top 7 cryptocurrencies, Ethereum saw the worst reduction in dominance in Q3, falling 3.6% and finishing the quarter with 13.4% market share.
Ethereum Layer 2s (L2) Increased Steadily in Q3
The report also throws light on the fact that during this period of time, the total number of transactions across the top 10 Ethereum Layer 2s (L2) increased steadily, and by the end of September, daily transactions had almost surpassed 10 million. By contrast, the Ethereum mainnet handles about a million transactions every day.
Ethereum dominated the DEX trade network in the third quarter, despite its falling market cap. Between July and September of 2024, Ethereum’s trading volume declined, with a cumulative volume that was $130.5 billion, 19.6% less than the previous quarter.
BTC Stays Neck To Neck With Other Asset Class
The report further highlights that despite a slight 0.8% increase in price in the third quarter of 2024, Bitcoin (BTC) beat most other main asset classes.
At 13.8% at the end of the quarter, gold was the biggest gainer. This occurred amid concerns about the US economy slowing down and the worsening Middle East crisis.
The gain in Bitcoin’s asset class also came while forecasting markets gained during the quarter, expanding 565.4%. Due to this, the volume on the top three prediction markets increased from $466.3 million in Q2 to $3.1 billion in Q3.
But most of the volume was on Polymarket, which held 99% of the market in September. During that time, there was an 848.5% increase in transactions and a 713.2% increase in betting volume.