Earlier this week, Cointelegraph reported that the Japanese Bitcoin exchange market surpassed the US to become the world’s largest exchange market by daily trading volume.
However, Japan was only able to briefly hold its trading volume for a few days as China and the US reclaimed their positions in the global Bitcoin exchange market rankings as the two largest exchange markets internationally.
In major online Bitcoin communities and forums, Bitcoin users, enthusiasts, analysts and traders expressed their concerns over utilizing Japan’s trading volume to measure the growth of its Bitcoin market and industry.
Zero-fee and margin trading
Some Bitcoin users explained that the Japanese Bitcoin exchange market’s trading volumes are bloated and manufactured because of its zero-fee trading system.
From 2013 to 2016, until the Chinese government and its central bank issued strict guidelines to exchanges on zero-fee and margin trading, China remained the largest Bitcoin exchange market.
But almost immediately after zero-fee trading was prohibited by the People’s Bank of China, the trading volume of the Chinese Bitcoin exchange market decreased.
In an interview with Bitcoin.com, BitFlyer CFO Midori Kanemitsu emphasized that the trading volumes of Japanese Bitcoin exchanges are legitimate and that despite the zero-fee system in place, trades are not bloated or manufactured by bots or illegitimate order settlements.
Kanemitsu said:
“The Japanese Bitcoin market is so extremely competitive that almost all the exchanges charge no fees, and the competition is going into negative fees. There have also been good in-flows from the recent volatility, including ‘Brexit,’ where JPY was bought and BTC outperformed JPY.”
A key player
Regardless of Kanemitsu and BitFlyer’s stance on the zero-fee system, Japanese Bitcoin exchanges have been relying on their zero-fee trading systems since their initial launch.
Users, traders and analysts can derive their own explanations to reason the rapid growth of the Japanese Bitcoin exchange market and choose to consider the trading volume of the Japanese Bitcoin exchange market as bloated and manufactured.
The fact is, Japan has become a key player within the global cryptocurrency exchange market for Bitcoin, Ripple, NEM and Litecoin.
More to that, many users have compared the decline of the Chinese Bitcoin exchange market’s trading volume after the prohibition of zero-fee trading by the Chinese government but in actuality, China remains the second largest Bitcoin exchange market in the world.