According to a report published by Finbold on January 1, 2021, the number of cryptocurrency categories globally was 8,153, and as of December 31, 2021, the number was 16,223, an increase of about 98.98% compared to January. Finbold data shows that 8,070 new tokens were created in the crypto industry in 2021, with an average of about 21 new cryptocurrencies being launched on the market every day. In total, about 5,000 new cryptocurrencies were added to the crypto market in January-October 2021, compared with more than 3,000 crypto currencies entering the market in November and December, according to separate data.

Cryptocurrency users continue to expand

According to relevant data, as of June 2021, the number of cryptocurrency users in the world has reached 221 million, of which it only took four months to increase from 100 million to 200 million users. More of the growth from January and February 2021 was driven by Bitcoin, but since May it has been driven by the adoption of counterfeit coins, with the number of users surging by nearly 80 million to 221 million in June, up from 143 million at the end of April. Most of these new users are interested in tokens like ShibaToken(SHIB) and Dogecoin(DOGE). Entering the second half of 2021, the growth rate of user size slowed down, with 295 million cryptocurrency users worldwide as of December 29, 2021, representing a 178.30% increase compared to the beginning of 2021.

Digital currency transactions are growing rapidly

According to CoinGecko's 2020 Annual Report on the Digital Asset Industry, the top nine decentralized trading platforms and the top nine centralized trading platforms saw significant growth in total trading volume in 2020, rising from $131.3 billion at the beginning of 2020 to $534.7 billion at the end of 2020.

Binance, a centralised exchange, leads the way

We provide users with account system, real-name authentication, asset recharge, asset custody, matching transactions, asset clearing, asset exchange and other business service platforms, which we call a centralized exchange. When users buy or sell cryptocurrencies, they need to charge them or issue coins into an exchange, which provides liquidity, makes matching transactions, and conducts settlement and other processes.

Among the nine centralized trading platforms, Binance remains the leader, while Huobi and OKEx saw their share of trading volume decline compared to 2019. Since January 2020, volume on centralized trading platforms has grown by $374 billion during the year to an all-time high of $505.1 billion in December, with Binance contributing the most. In December compared with January, Binance volume increased by $189 billion, Huobi volume increased by $61 billion, and Coinbase volume increased by $40 billion. During the year, Binance showed the most significant growth trend, with a 45% share of volume in December. OKEx is down 50%, from 28% of volume to 14%.

Uniswap, a decentralized exchange, is dominant

A decentralized exchange that does not host user assets and gives users absolute control over their assets. Decentralized exchanges are responsible for providing liquidity, matching transactions by smart contracts, and clearing transactions on blockchain.

Uniswap continues to be the leader in the decentralized trading platform space, but the newly launched protocol has taken market share from Kyber and dYdX.

In 2020, trading volume on decentralized trading platforms grew 180-fold from $163 million in January to $29 billion in December. Uniswap remained the leader in volume throughout the year, with a 55% share as of December. Kyber and dYdX decreased by 42% and 15%, respectively.

Overall, the global digital currency market is booming. As one of the important innovation products of fintech, digital currency has brought profound influence to the whole financial industry and its regulatory field. Digital currencies initially appeared in the form of private digital currencies. These private digital currencies changed the form, circulation and payment methods of traditional currencies, and generated different intrinsic values according to their different designs. At the same time of the development of private digital currency, on the one hand, central banks of various countries have also tested the waters of sovereign digital currency. While reducing the cost of issuing currency, it has achieved the requirements of convenience and security, improved the efficiency of payment and clearing and settlement, and enhanced the control of supply and circulation. On the other hand, in the face of the security problems brought by digital currency, the regulatory authorities of various countries have improved the regulatory rules, refined the regulatory requirements, and also introduced new regulatory concepts to cope with the challenge of digital currency to regulation.