Okcoin, one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing cryptocurrency platforms, today reported a 450% increase in institutional customers and 124% increase in institutional trading volume between September 2020 and 2021. Concurrently, Okcoin’s Daily Active retail Users (DAU) grew by 2,800%. With Okcoin being a top regulated cryptocurrency exchange, institutional activity on the platform is indicative of macro sentiment among large-scale investors, with clientele including asset managers, venture capital and hedge funds, retail brokers, payment processors, and other entities around the globe.
Institutions in 2021 are showing a greater appetite for non-bitcoin crypto assets, known as altcoins, compared to previous years, with increasing demand for both stablecoins and those native to Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols. Altcoins made up 53% of institutions’ cryptocurrency purchases on Okcoin in September 2021 — a 23% increase from September 2020. In Q3 2021 alone, institutions utilizing Okcoin Earn, the DeFi investing tool, grew by 62%.
Notably, institutions’ receptivity to newer crypto assets is growing. In 2020 and earlier, institutions exclusively favored altcoins that were at least four years old, such as ether and litecoin. While older cryptocurrencies still dominate institutional altcoin purchases on Okcoin, institutions in 2021 began buying younger assets in larger volumes. MiamiCoin (MIA) became the fourth most popular asset among institutions on Okcoin in Q3, immediately after the respective protocol launched in August 2021. Avalanche (AVAX) was the sixth most popular asset among institutions in 2021 while the protocol was less than a year old.
This momentum is underpinned by Okcoin being first-to-market with a series of institutional trading tools and asset listings in response to demand from institutions for more crypto market exposure. Most recently, Okcoin became the first to offer an API to access DeFi — a feature that was highly requested by asset managers and neo-banks — enabling institutions to seamlessly incorporate DeFi earning opportunities into their products and investment workflows. Other tools, such as APIs for the Bitcoin Lightning Network; trading, account, and sub-account management; and post-trade settlement, have also been implemented by Okcoin’s institutional clients across various segments. With a commitment to providing customers with the best selection of well-vetted assets, Okcoin was the first regulated exchange to list top cryptocurrencies in 2021 including Stacks (STX), Avalanche (AVAX), and Near Protocol (NEAR), among others.
For more information, please visit okcoin.com/insitutions.
Information provided by FinancialNewsMedia.
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