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Bitcoin (BTC) trading volume against several global currencies has spiked in recent months, including the BTC-GBP (British pound) pair, which rose 233% in September after the currency fell to an all-time low of \u00a31.03 against the US dollar, according to a report by digital asset data provider CryptoCompare. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
As the global economy continues to reel from high inflation and energy crisis, several currencies have seen their purchasing power and value decline against the US dollars.<\/p>\n
The abnormal jump in trading volume suggests investors and traders could be hedging their weakened currencies with bitcoin as well as stablecoins. <\/p>\n
Traditional and crypto markets saw a major fall in September as macroeconomic conditions continued their bearish sentiment. <\/p>\n
Bitcoin remained the least volatile asset and the most dominant across major cryptocurrencies. In September, BTC outperformed both the S&P500 and Nasdaq, which saw negative returns of 9.34% and 10.5% respectively, falling for the second month in a row. <\/p>\n
Ethereum (ETH) was the worst performer after the long-waited Merge proved to be a \u2018buy the rumour, sell the news\u2019 event.<\/p>\n
After the Merge, the price of Ethereum plummeted to $1,300 levels, trading below its 50-day moving average while volatility also increased.<\/p>\n
This led to a 36.2% decline in spot volumes to $439 billion. Future volumes also saw a fall of 6.52% to $932 billion, showing continued relative strength against spot markets. <\/p>\n
As futures allow market participants to bet against an asset more easily, it is unsurprising these volumes have remained elevated compared to the spot. <\/p>\n
According to CryptoCompare, volatility across cryptocurrency markets saw a slight increase in September amid the interest rates spikes and the unstable macro environment. Ethereum and Solana continued to be the most volatile assets with 30-day volatility of 80.0% and 82.6%, respectively. Bitcoin\u2019s volatility rose 19.2% in September breaking a declining trend that started in June. <\/p>\n
While most volumes declined in September, both USDT and USD volumes for BTC increased by 15.4% and 15.1%, respectively, suggesting market participants are piling into BTC following recent volatility in fiat currencies, including the British pound and Japanese yen. <\/p>\n
USDT volumes for ETH saw a big drop of 49.4% amid its transition to proof of stake. Cardano and Solana saw declines in USD volumes, while SOL saw a noticeable rise of 10.5% in USDT volumes in September.<\/p>\n