CoinMarketCap updated system appears to rank trading pairs in Binance favor

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Digital currency data platform CoinMarketCap has recently updated its market pairs ranking system. It now provides “a more comprehensive picture of each market pair, ensuring that users make better decisions on where to trade,” according to the platform.

CoinMarketCap’s old system previously ranked pairs by reported volume only. However, many digital currency exchanges were inflating their trading volumes to make their trading pairs look more attractive to potential digital currency traders.

Interestingly, the platform’s new ranking system seems to rank trading pairs in favor of Binance, the digital currency exchange that bought CoinMarketCap for an estimated $400 million in late March.

Two new metrics

In the new ranking system, “The market pairs of exchanges is algorithmically scored across three aspects — reported volume, liquidity and an estimation of an exchange’s user base (via the proprietary Web Traffic Factor) — and each market pair will have to score well across all three aspects to rank well.”

By evaluating market pairs across three performance rankings instead of one, CoinMarketCap hopes that it will provide a more accurate assessment of which exchanges have the most appealing market pairs.

In addition to CoinMarketCap’s new evaluation system, Binance has added one more metric in evaluating market pairs—a confidence indicator. The confidence indicator, “reflects the level of confidence that CoinMarketCap has in the legitimacy of the volume of a market pair reported by the exchange…The indicator, shown in three bands, is based on a machine-learning algorithm that takes all the data CoinMarketCap has (e.g. liquidity, order book depths, time and sales, user base size estimated by web traffic variables) to determine if the volume reported by exchanges for that market pair is inflated and to what extent.”

The confidence indicator allegedly uses a machine-learning algorithm to assess the accuracy of several digital currency exchange metrics. What’s interesting is, after Binance implemented these two new evaluation techniques—its new ranking system and the confidence indicator—the Binance exchange, which owns CoinMarketCap, began ranking first for nearly every market pair with a 100% confidence score.

Did Binance rig the system?

Because Binance owns CoinMarketCap, it seems that Binance is a bit biased in the preference they give digital currency exchanges when it comes to rankings and confidence. It looks as though Binance rigged the system in a way that ranks Binance first in its market pair ranking system. In addition, the confidence indicator always gives Binance a 100% confidence score. 

This is not the first time Binance has been accused of rigging CoinMarketCap’s ranking system. Shortly after Binance purchased CoinMarketCap, many claimed that a newly added “web traffic” metric was put into place so that Binance would rank first in its digital currency exchange ranking system.