By Sam Boughedda
Morgan Stanley revealed Friday that the majority of Bitcoin traded on exchanges in February was only on one exchange.
MS analysts stated in a research note on Bitcoin's recent rally that 81% of BTC traded on exchanges in February was traded on Binance. As a result, Morgan Stanley concludes that "traders on Binance now set the daily price for BTC."
They said while investors mostly ask the firm about Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), they would argue that the flows on Binance should be more closely monitored to understand what is going on in the markets.
"For context, after bitcoin rallied 40% in January, the volume of BTC/USDT traded on Binance reached 38x that of the equivalent pair on Coinbase relative to being only 4x in early 2022," they explained.
On the recent rally in BTC, the analysts state that "the narrative has quickly turned to: weaker traditional banking sector = higher bitcoin price."
"This is just a narrative that has been self-reinforced by price action," they wrote.
"In fact, as we have highlighted for the past year, bitcoin trades as a speculative asset driven by the prospect and availability of fiat currency and resulting crypto liquidity (see bitcoin vs global M2 money supply chart)."