How to Trade Forex

Trading Volume in Forex and Crypto

In this lesson, you’ll explore the volume dynamics across Forex futures and cryptocurrency markets, understanding how these metrics reflect market activity and institutional adoption. We examine real trading data and recent milestones that demonstrate the evolution of these markets.

The Forex futures market typically sees trading volume of around 90 billion to 100 billion. While this is significantly lower than spot trading volume, we’re witnessing increasing Forex futures trading activity. On June 12, 2024, FX futures reached an all-time high single-day volume record of 3.26 million contracts, equivalent to 314 billion in notional value. The growth chart also reveals that options volume, shown in purple, is becoming increasingly important despite not being the main volume driver.

In the crypto space, we examine how traded volume has changed over time with the latest data showing Bitcoin averaging a daily volume of 30 billion and Ethereum at 17 billion. Bitcoin’s on-chain daily volume is estimated at approximately 46 billion, which surpasses credit card giants like Visa and MasterCard in daily processed activity.

The lesson also covers the impact of recently approved Bitcoin ETFs. Before ETF approval, Grayscale was the major fund providing Bitcoin exposure. Now, the BlackRock iShares fund has overtaken Grayscale, holding approximately 22 billion compared to Grayscale’s 20.7 billion, with clear growth visible over recent months.

Video Chapters

  1. 00:00 – Forex futures market volume overview and records
  2. 00:38 – Growth of Forex volume and options trading
  3. 01:03 – Cryptocurrency daily trading volume statistics
  4. 01:20 – Bitcoin on-chain volume vs credit card processors
  5. 01:44 – Bitcoin ETFs and institutional fund comparison

Key Takeaways

  1. The Forex futures market reached a record 314 billion in notional value on a single day in June 2024
  2. Bitcoin’s on-chain daily volume of 46 billion exceeds the daily processing volume of Visa and MasterCard combined
  3. BlackRock iShares has overtaken Grayscale as the largest Bitcoin ETF with 22 billion in assets
  4. Options volume is becoming an increasingly important component of Forex futures trading activity
Video Transcription

[00:00:00.10] - Speaker 1
So the Forex future market typically sees a trading volume of around 90 billion to 100 billion. And although it's very significantly lower than the spot trading volume, we've seen increasing Forex trading. So let's look at this article coming from cme, the exchange where we see mostly Forex transactions. So for example, on June 12, 2024 FX Future reached an all time high in a single day volume record of 3.26 million contracts, which is an equivalent of 314 billion in notional. So really large number for Forex future.

[00:00:38.05] - Speaker 1
Right. In this chart we also see the growth of Forex volume over time is divided by type of assets. The kind of purple color is the option volume. So as we can see, options are not the main driver of the volume but is becoming very, very important, is a very, very important asset to flow. Right, to follow.

[00:01:03.07] - Speaker 1
Now let's go into the crypto space. So here we can see the traded volume for crypto, how it has changed over time. And here we see the latest data. So on average Bitcoin has a daily volume of 30 billion, while Ethereum has a daily volume of 17 billion. Right.

[00:01:20.20] - Speaker 1
So this brings us to more statistics. So, so Bitcoin is now estimated to have on chain daily volume of about 46 billion, which is more than credit card giants like Visa and MasterCard. Right. So there's more activity on Bitcoin than what Visa MasterCard process every day. On the left hand side we can see the ETFs that are being recently approved.

[00:01:44.10] - Speaker 1
So before the ETFs obviously grayscale was the major fund that was kind of like giving you an exposure to bitcoin. And the BlackRock I shares now has overtaken the grayscale fund and we see like about 22 billion in the I shares compared to 20.7 billion in grayscale. And obviously you see the growth over the recent months here as well.