Blame it on profit taking: Nine of the ten most popular cryptos on the social trading platform eToro fell in trading volume for the month of September.
As usual, Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP were the first, second and third most traded coins in September, holding their ranks from August. Yet despite maintaining their positions, all three experienced a drop in month-on-month trades by volume—down 43%, 48%, and 67%, respectively, according to eToro’s report.
Ethereum is continuing its implementation of sharding as a solution to its scaling problem and its transition from a proof-of-work protocol to a proof-of-stake protocol. All these changes have been branded as Phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0. Its value has nearly doubled in value so far this year and its active address count has increased by 118% relative to Bitcoin’s 49%, according to the blockchain analytics firm Messari.
Warnings of delays for the release of Ethereum 2.0, however, have kept the door ajar for competitors.
Binance Coin climbed from seventh to fourth place between August and September. Tezos, which had traded in high volume throughout the summer, fell from fourth to eighth. That was noteworthy, eToro pointed out because it marked the first time a decentralized application has slipped from the top five “since the inception of eToro’s monthly cryptoasset reports.”
NEO was the only coin to climb in popularity last month, by 2%.
Simon Peters, a market analyst for eToro, took a rosier view of September’s downtrend. “September was subdued, following an energetic August,” he said in prepared remarks. “It is worth noting that every coin has performed positively in 2020, with software platforms such as Ethereum and Tron seeing respective gains of 160% and 84%. Cryptoasset trading activity may be down for September, but they remain very much on the up when compared with 2019.”
Following the bull run of this past summer, investors would have been looking to take some of these profits. This, Peters argued, explains the fall in trading volume—something that will be naturally remedied once investors feel cryptoassets are “embarking on another bull run.”