Digital Asset Research, a provider of crypto asset data and research, this week released its April 2021 Crypto Exchange Vetting and Asset Vetting results.
More than 400 exchanges were evaluated during the latest vetting process to identify 19 vetted exchanges. Two exchanges, Bitso and GMO Coin Co., were added to the vetted exchanges list, while Bitfinex was removed from enhanced review status and VCC Exchange was placed on enhanced review. Exchanges that remain on the Vetted Exchanges list include Binance.US; bitbank; bitFlyer; Bitstamp; Bittrex; Coinbase Pro; Coincheck; Gemini; itBit; Kraken; Liquid; LMAX Digital; Luno; OKCoin; and Zaif.
Twelve exchanges are now designated as watchlist exchanges for potential future inclusion on the vetted exchanges list: Binance; Bitrue; BKEX; CoinEx; CoinTiger; Gate.io; HBTC; Huobi; LATOKEN; OceanEx; Poloniex; and ZB.com.
The asset vetting process evaluated more than 500 digital assets to identify 14 benchmark assets and over 400 non-benchmark assets. The benchmark assets are unchanged from the previous quarter and include: 0x (ZRX); Augur (REP); Basic Attention Token (BAT); Bitcoin (BTC); Chainlink (LINK); EOS (EOS); Ethereum (ETH); Kyber Network (KNC); Monero (XMR); OMG Network (OMG); Orchid (OXT); Stellar (XLM); Tezos (XTZ); and Zcash (ZEC).
“There is a material difference in crypto asset price and trading volumes when you filter out faked volume, manipulative trading, and artificial prices. Our research saw Bitcoin prices off by over two per cent during recent market events and alt-coins were off by even more. As firms look at digital assets for investment and build investment products on them, this understanding of the market is an important foundation,” stated Doug Schwenk, chairman, Digital Asset Research (DAR).
The exchange vetting process combines data science and traditional due diligence to identify exchanges reporting accurate volumes and eliminate exchanges that are not appropriate for determining an accurate market price. During the asset vetting process, digital assets trading on vetted exchanges are evaluated to determine if they meet institutional investor standards for codebase construction and maintenance, community, security, liquidity, and regulatory compliance.
The results of the exchange vetting and asset vetting processes are used by DAR clients to determine accurate asset prices and to identify safe venues in the market. Results are also used for DAR sector indexes and in the FTSE DAR Reference Price, an hourly reference price for digital asset market performance.
DAR performs its vetting processes quarterly. Results will next be announced in July 2021.