Bitcoin price is at $23,530 right now. Imagine Alice wants to buy 1 bitcoin and sell it a few minutes later for some profit. In that case Alice can apply a 10x

Bitcoin price is at $23,530 right now. Imagine Alice wants to buy 1 bitcoin and sell it a few minutes later for some profit. In that case Alice can apply a 10x leverage since it is short term, and needs only $2,400 as collateral. 10 minutes later she sold the coin at $24,000, netting a profit of $470. This makes $47,530 of trade volume with just $2,400 collateral and $47 in tx fees (assuming that tx fee is 1/2000 for both buyer and seller). For some illiquid exchanges, buying a bitcoin may cause a huge price impact such that there is room for arbitrage. Someone would buy a bitcoin at a cheaper price at another exchange and sell it to Alice at a higher price for profit. In this case, the trade volume is doubled (i.e. 1 bitcoin at this exchange and 1 bitcoin at another exchange). So while trade volume is very high, only a very small percentage of it is customers' own money.