LMAX Digital volumes exploded to record levels in Thursday trade. Total notional volume came in at $5.1 billion, 122% above the 30-day average volume.

Bitcoin volume was up 96% from 30-day average volume, coming in at $2.5 billion on Thursday, while Ether volume continued to skyrocket, up 149% from 30-day average volume, coming in at $1.4 billion.

It was also impressive to see such strong volume with demand persisting into dips and cryptocurrencies so well supported.

Average trade sizes held steady for the most part on Thursday. BTCUSD trade size at LMAX Digital came in around $12,000, near the bottom of the 30-day range. Average ETHUSD trade size nudged up a bit from the previous day, just over $9,000 and close to its 30-day high around $10,000.

Total notional volume at LMAX Digital over the past 30 days comes in at $68.8 billion. The average daily trading range for BTCUSD is $3,854. The average daily trading range for ETHUSD is $318.

Most of the conversation in the crypto space continues to be around fallout from the Tesla move to stop accepting Bitcoin as payment. Musk’s announcement has brought a longstanding debate back into the spotlight around Bitcoin’s environmental impact.

But this debate has been flushed out many times before and is unlikely to have any major impact beyond short-term fluctuations in price. Bitcoin’s use of renewable energy and plans to continue to push forward in more environmentally friendly ways is quite encouraging.

In our view, the bigger, less exciting story this week has been around the impact of global macro forces on cryptocurrencies. The rise in US inflation is a major concern to investors given the impact it could have on monetary policy.

If inflation continues to move up at the pace we’ve been seeing, it will likely add more downside pressure on risk assets, which in turn could weigh more heavily on the emerging asset class. In this backdrop, we would expect Bitcoin to outperform Ether.

Stories getting attention into Friday are around Binance facing investigation by the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Justice for potential wrongdoing, Tether disclosing a breakdown of its reserves for the first time since 2014, and the Bank of England’s Jon Cunliffe saying a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) is probably if public money is to survive.