North American Investors Vastly Favor Bitcoin Over Other Cryptocurrencies

Published at: Aug. 6, 2020

Bitcoin (BTC) is the most popular cryptocurrency for trading in every region of the world, but North American investors are the cryptocurrency’s biggest fans, a new report says.

On Aug. 6, major crypto analytics firm Chainalysis published a report devoted to key trends in the North American crypto market. According to the report, North American investors “disproportionately favor Bitcoin” over other cryptocurrencies like Ether (ETH) or XRP.

Bitcoin represents 72% of all crypto trading in North America

While Bitcoin is the most traded crypto in the world, North America accounts for 72% of all of the asset’s transaction volume, the report says. In comparison, in regions like Africa and Western Europe, Bitcoin trading activity amounts to 69% and 66%, respectively.

Altcoins like Ether or XRP make up the smallest share of total crypto trading activity in North America among other regions, accounting for a mere 17%. In contrast, altcoins trading share in Central and Southern Asia, and East Asia makes up 35% and 33% out of total crypto trading activity, respectively. Stablecoins like Tether (USDT) were not counted in the altcoins category, Chainalysis noted.

Global trading activity by crypto type. Source: Chainalysis

North Americans prefer to hodl more than traders in Asia

According to Chainalysis’ findings, North America-based professional and institutional investors are also among the biggest crypto hodlers around the world. According to the report, North American investors tend to buy and hold cryptocurrency more than those based in East Asia, whose trading intensity is significantly higher.

According to the report, trade intensity on East Asia-based exchanges is close to double that of North American trading venues over the past year.

Trade intensity in East Asia versus North America and Western Europe. Source: Chainalysis

Ether outperforms Bitcoin in 2020

Despite Bitcoin being the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the top performing crypto asset. As reported by Cointelegraph, Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, continues to top the 2020 crypto rally as the best-performing asset class in 2020. The asset has an average year-to-date gain of 130%.

According to an Aug. 5 report by major wallet service Blockchain.com, Ether continued to outperform Bitcoin in July; it was up +33% for the month over BTC.

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Technology
Bitcoin
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Cryptocurrencies
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North America
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