More Than Half Of All Bitcoin Trades Are Fake

Our Approach

Forbes uses quantitative and qualitative analyses to adjust trading volume reported by the exchanges. Unlike other methods that carry out tests on transactional data (and can also be duped), Forbes grades a firm’s credibility by evaluating no fewer than five datasets that together inspire or diminish confidence in a firm’s self-reported data. Data comes from four crypto media firms, CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, Nomics and Messari, as well as multiple exchanges and two other third-party data providers.

We apply volume discounts based on a proprietary methodology that relies on 10 factors such as an exchange’s home regulator if any and volume metrics based on an exchange’s web traffic and estimated workforce size. We also use the number and quality of crypto licenses as proxy to gauge the sophistication of each crypto exchange in matters pertaining to regulation and trade surveillance. If a firm shows a commitment to transparency by conducting token proofs of reserve or by participating in Forbes crypto exchange surveys, it qualifies for a “transparency credit” that lowers any discount that may otherwise apply.

Many of these factors were also present in Forbes’ crypto exchange ranking formula. We divided them into three categories:

Group 1: 48 crypto exchanges that were assigned discounts of 0-25% generated $39 billion of real bitcoin trading activity across all markets–spot, derivatives and futures–on June 14.

Group 2: 73 exchanges with volume discounts of 26% to 79% generated $81 billion in transactional activity (vs. $158 billion claimed)

Group 3: The remaining 36 firms were penalized with a high discount rate (80-99%) and traded $7.7 billion out of $59 billion claimed.