Exchanges fighting for trading volume, new firm names that at least 95%+ of the population has never heard of and exchanges in cities outside the “normal” financial centers. NO, this is not the options markets of the 70’s its…..Bitcoin. China dominates bitcoin trading (for now) with exchanges people never heard of, trading firms with “funny names” and cities no one can find. The global battle for exchange volume is cranking up. FintekNews has three words for everybody; Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Watch out startups.

China based exchanges like BTCC, OKCoin and Huobi have dominated bitcoin trading but with the world now beginning to fully embrace the digital currency there is competition brewing. Skeptical statistics coupled with the PBOC’s initiating greater scrutiny of these exchanges and a crackdown on things like margin trading has spurred new “no fee” exchanges to compete for trading liquidity. This is a really good read and we have seen this “game” before back in the day. Stay tuned, change is coming fast.

"Bitcoin traders have long been skeptical of the reliability of available exchange data – but that uncertainty has been on the rise in recent days.

To recap, up until recently, China-based exchanges BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin dominated the landscape in terms of volume (though these figures were long observed with skepticism). However, this reign was cut short earlier in January when the startups came under the scrutiny of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank.

The result has been a series of policy changes, the abrupt end to popular trading features like margin trading and a rapid decline in the volume at the three exchanges, developments that are now impacting the wider market.

In recent days, new no-fee exchanges are now ranking among the top 10 in volume, resulting in a bitcoin exchange leaderboard that looks markedly different than it did last week."

Read Full Article at CoinDesk