Bitcoin regained the $72,000 level, pushing combined trading volume in bitcoin, ether and XRP to $46.6 billion, the largest since June.

On Aug. 20, blockchain outlet Decrypt reported that spot and perpetual futures trading volume in the three assets across major exchanges totaled $46.6 billion on Aug. 19.

The jump in trading coincided with a rebound in bitcoin's price. Bitcoin rose back above $70,000 on Aug. 20, and was up to $72,307 at the time of writing. That was an increase of more than 12 percent in a day from around $64,400 the previous day. The rise in volume also confirmed that the breakout came amid increased market participation.

Derivatives dominated trading. Perpetual futures volume was $42.7 billion, accounting for 91.7 percent of the total. By asset, bitcoin perpetual futures were the largest at about $22.0 billion, followed by ether at $20.0 billion. XRP perpetual futures volume was about $718 million. Spot volume totaled $3.85 billion: $1.96 billion in bitcoin, $1.69 billion in ether and $198 million in XRP. Overall, perpetual futures trading was about 11 times larger than spot trading.

Altcoins also reacted immediately. Ether rose 19.25 percent in a day to $2,285, recovering most of its losses over the past 90 days. XRP also rose 16 percent to $1.15 from around $0.98 last week. Still, XRP's return over the past 90 days remained down 15.35 percent.

Trading volume was below about $59.4 billion recorded on June 5. The latest figure was 21.5 percent lower than that peak. Even so, the return of the largest trading activity since June is seen as a signal that the market mood, which had been sluggish in recent months, is changing.

Changes in the macro environment also contributed to the rise in market volatility. U.S. President Donald Trump met on Aug. 19 with representatives from Ripple, Coinbase, Chainlink, Kraken, Robinhood and Nasdaq to discuss the future of digital assets. Trump said his administration had "ended the war on crypto" and laid out plans for a strategic bitcoin reserve, a digital asset reserve, stablecoin legislation and modernising financial regulation tailored to blockchain-based markets.

A U.S. Treasury liquidity support measure also followed. The Treasury said it would raise the limit on each long-dated Treasury liquidity support buyback from $2.0 billion to at least $4.0 billion from Sept. 9. Long-dated Treasury yields fell and the dollar weakened. U.S.-Canada trade tensions also showed signs of easing as the United States delayed by three days the imposition of a 50 percent tariff on imports from Canada.

With bitcoin now above $72,200, the market is watching whether bitcoin strength will spread across major cryptocurrencies, including ether and XRP. Short-term volatility may continue to rise, especially because the recent rally has relied heavily on leveraged perpetual futures trading rather than spot markets.