The renewed institutional interest in cryptocurrency sent Bitcoin surging to a new 12-month high, with its price jumping above $31,300 in June. Although BTC lost some of its gains in the last week of the month, it still finished the first half of 2023 with an impressive 85% growth, putting it on track for its best annual performance since 2020.
According to data presented by bitcoincasinos.com, Bitcoin's trading volume hit over $4.2 trillion in the first half of the year.
After a significant slowdown in December 2022, the last month of one of the hardest years for the entire crypto industry, the global crypto trading volume spiked in January, with all major cryptocurrencies seeing double- and triple-digit month-over-month growth. The CoinMarketCap data show Bitcoin's trading volume hit $950 billion that month, up from $420 billion in December, ranking as the second most-traded digital coin in the crypto space.
But, after beginning 2023 on a positive note and bringing some long-awaited optimism to the market, Bitcoin's price and monthly trading volume significantly dropped the following month. Statistics show BTC trading volume hit $686 billion in February, or 27% less than a month before.
That all changed in March, the best month for BTC trading in the first half of the year. Bitcoin's price climbed 21% and hit above $28,000 that month, while its trading volume jumped 73% month over month and hit almost $1.2 trillion. Tether, usually the most-traded crypto, saw $1.17 trillion in trading volume in March.
However, April brought another downturn, with all the largest cryptos seeing their trading volumes plunge that month. Statistics show Bitcoin's monthly trading volume sank by almost $700 billion month over month to only $493 billon in April. After slipping to $443 billion in May, BTC trading volume rose to $509 billion in June, remaining 60% below the peak in March.
The CoinMarketCap data also showed that Bitcoin trading volume in the first six months of the year is still significantly lower than in the year-ago period. The crypto space saw nearly $5.12 trillion worth of BTC trades between January and June 2022, or $845 billion less than in the first half (H1) of this year.
While March was the top month for Bitcoin trading in H1 2023, last year was May, with nearly $1.1 trillion worth of BTC trades. April and June 2022 also saw significantly stronger BTC trading activities than the same months this year, while trading volumes reported in January and February 2022 remained slightly below this year's levels.
