eToro experienced a decline in growth of investor interest in every cryptocurrency except Tezos (XTZ) in the second quarter of 2020.
Top 5 cryptocurrencies by the growth in number of eToro users investing in it in Q2. Souce: eToro.
Although Tezos saw a small uptick in the number of eToro users investing in the last quarter — only 2.53%, it was enough to take first place with 8.12% growth in growth. The growth for every other asset decelerated for every other cryptocurrency with most experiencing a double digit decline. Tezos’ exceptional performance may be explained by its low base (low growth rate) in the first quarter.
eToro users switching to equities
Co-Founder & CEO of The Tie, Joshua Frank, told Cointelegraph that likely one of the reasons for this trend is the fact that eToro began to focus more on commission free equity trading:
“eToro has begun to have a more global focus on commission free equity trading as stock trading has begun to soar in the wake of coronavirus. eToro users have increasingly looked towards trading equities rather than cryptocurrencies over the last few months.”
We should note that in absolute numbers, only Zcash (ZEC) saw a smaller increase in the second quarter with 1.40%. While many cryptocurrencies experienced growth several magnitudes higher than Tezos — 46.01% for XRP (XRP) and 31.31% for Bitcoin (BTC).
BTC, ETH & XRP add 1M followers
Nonetheless, Frank believes that eTore users have still retained quite an appetite for crypto as each of the top assets gained almost 1 million new followers:
“Nearly 1 million new eToro accounts began following the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP pages this month. This signals that while broadly there may be a bit more of an equity shift, existing and new eToro users most definitely continue to have an appetite for cryptocurrencies.”
Perhaps, another reason for the deceleration in growth can be explained by the low volatility of the crypto markets and the stabilization of the traditional ones.