The first quarter report of the crypto market in 2023 provides important information about market trends, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) analysis, decentralized finance (DeFi), NFT ecosystems, and various areas in the crypto world. These insights cover the trading volumes of centralized exchanges (CEX) and decentralized exchanges (DEX).
2023 started off strong for the crypto market, and by the end of March, the total market value reached $1.2 trillion, showing a 48.9% increase. Bitcoin and Ethereum prices surged to approximately $28,000 and $1,800 respectively, with Bitcoin leading the quarter with a significant gain of 72%.
In the first quarter, the daily average trading volume of the crypto market increased by 30% to reach $77 billion. This growth was driven by market volatility and movements. Bitcoin outperformed traditional asset classes, surpassing the performance of NASDAQ and gold with a remarkable gain of 72.4% in the quarter.
The spot trading volume of the crypto market reached $2.8 trillion in the first quarter, experiencing an 18.1% increase. Regulatory scrutiny towards centralized exchanges led to faster growth of DEXs, with DEXs expanding by 33.4% in the quarter, while the growth of CEXs was at 16.9%.
In the stablecoin market, a short-term decline of 4.5% (6.2 billion dollars) was observed, especially due to Paxos discontinuing support for Binance USD (BUSD) and the exchange of USD Coin (USDC). Tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin, maintained and strengthened its position, while USDC and BUSD faced losses in market value.
The DeFi and NFT sectors witnessed significant developments throughout the quarter. The DeFi sector reached $29.6 billion in the first quarter, growing by 65.2%. Governance tokens of liquid stock protocols stood out with a 210.9% increase in market value, surpassing credit protocols to become the third-largest category in DeFi. The NFT market volume increased by 68% compared to the previous quarter, reaching $4.5 billion. The new NFT marketplace, Blur, surpassed OpenSea with a market share of 71.8% as of March 2023, becoming the largest NFT marketplace.