A silver lining to the novel coronavirus...

People are being forced to stay in their homes with not much to do, so what do they do, they trade cryptocurrency!

So far that hasn't shown up in volume increases across the board, but we are seeing an influx of new users at the exchanges.

And often new users are what comes first before the volumes take off.

Reading a report this morning, 5 different exchanges reported a significant uptick in new users.

The exchanges are:

• Kraken
• OKex
• Bitfinex
• Paxful
• Luno

Several of those 5 saw double and tripling of their rates of sign ups over the past couple weeks, basically ever since the lock-downs really began.

https://decrypt.co/24043/bitcoin-exchanges-see-massive-surge-in-new-users-this-month?&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=feed&utm_source=coinbase

People will come Ray, people will most definitely come...

So, if the exchanges are seeing new users signing up and people have nothing to do all day except trade crypto, why are the prices still in the gutter?

That is a great question and one that likely doesn't have a simple answer.

The most likely reason stems from the liquidity event we say earlier in the month still weighing heavily on prices.

Where everything that wasn't nailed down was sold for cash, bitcoin included.

As we move past that initial liquidity crisis, some of the tailwinds will likely start to impact prices.

Things like the stimulus money, crypto being a safe haven outside the legacy financial systems, the halving... etc.

An interesting observation...

There is something interesting taking place at the exchanges, and that has to do with the amount of crypto moving off the exchanges...

Check this chart out:

(Source: https://twitter.com/glassnode/status/1243262696654393344)

According to Glassnode, the bitcoin balances on exchanges are the lowest they have been in 8 months.

So, yes new users are signing up, but they are taking their crypto off the exchange.

This likely has to do with people trying to protect themselves in case the legacy financial system fails them in some way.

Either way, people moving their crypto off exchanges impacts the trading volumes at the exchanges.

Not to mention there are record amounts of capital parked in stable coins currently.

When/if that money starts to make its way back into bitcoin or altcoins we are going to see a very strong bull rally.

Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.

Stay informed my friends.

-Doc