The Sea of Money: Inside the $9.5 Trillion-a-Day Forex Market

Every day, from Monday to Friday, the world moves more money than many economies produce in a year. It is the Forex market, short for foreign exchange , the largest and most liquid in the world: according to the latest survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) , in 2025 the average daily trading volume reached 9.5 trillion dollars (9,500,000,000,000) . A dizzying figure, which makes Forex not only the engine of the global financial system, but also its most sensitive thermometer.

No other market moves so much capital in such a short time. To give an idea of its size: the global stock market, including all the world's stock exchanges, generates around $400–500 billion in daily trading; the global bond market is around $700–800 billion . Forex alone is therefore worth approximately seven times the sum of stocks and bonds.

Who moves this ocean of currencies?

Contrary to popular belief, it's not small speculators or online traders who determine the main flows. The currency market is dominated by large institutions:

• Central banks and governments , which intervene to stabilize their currency or to accumulate reserves.

• Commercial and investment banks , which form the backbone of the market, acting as intermediaries between the various players. The top ten global banks alone account for over 70% of global volume .

• Multinational corporations , which exchange currencies to hedge the risk of trade flows and revenues in different currencies.

• Hedge funds and asset managers , who operate to profit from exchange rate movements, often by exploiting yield differentials between countries (so-called carry trade strategies).

• Finally, retail traders , a numerical minority but increasingly present thanks to digital platforms.

In other words, Forex is a global market where national borders almost disappear: an interconnected ecosystem where currency is both a commodity and a measure of value .

Why do we exchange money for money?

At first glance, it may seem absurd: why would anyone "buy dollars by selling euros," or vice versa, if both are merely means of payment? In reality, there's a specific economic motivation behind every currency transaction.

1. Hedging: A European company exporting to the United States fears that the euro will strengthen and reduce the value of its dollar-denominated revenues. To protect itself, it sells dollars in advance and buys euros.

2. Arbitrage: Sophisticated traders exploit small discrepancies between exchange rates on different markets or platforms. Even differences of a few thousandths of a cent can be worth millions if repeated thousands of times a day.

3. Real need: tourists, importers, governments, and businesses who simply need to exchange currency for their business.

4. Speculation or investment: those who try to anticipate the moves of central banks, growth divergences, or geopolitical crises by betting on the strengthening or weakening of a currency.

The result is a continuous flow of transactions in which motivations overlap: a mosaic of intentions that keeps the markets alive.

The evolution in recent years

In the 2000s, Forex trading volume hovered around $1.5 trillion a day . By 2010, it had risen to $4 trillion , to $5.1 trillion in 2016, and to the current $9.5 trillion . In twenty years, trading volumes have quadrupled .

The reasons for this expansion are multiple. On the one hand, globalization and the growth of international trade have made currency conversions indispensable. On the other, the explosion of financial markets and the advent of electronic trading have reduced barriers to entry, increasing the speed and number of transactions.

Furthermore, the post-pandemic period has seen a return of currency volatility, with the dollar strengthening by as much as 16% in 2022 before weakening as the Fed slowed the pace of rate hikes. Every rate move, every political tweet, every macroeconomic data point generates immediate waves of orders, often within milliseconds.

The strength of liquidity

What makes Forex unique is its liquidity : the ability to buy and sell huge amounts of currency without significantly altering the price. It's also an over-the-counter (OTC) market, meaning it's decentralized, where transactions occur 24 hours a day, flowing seamlessly from Sydney to Tokyo, London to New York.

Under normal conditions, a trade worth tens of millions of dollars can be executed in less than a second with virtually no price difference. This level of efficiency attracts investors of all types: those seeking security, diversification, and returns.

In a world where everything has a price, even money itself becomes an asset to be traded. Forex isn't just a market: it's the language with which the world measures trust, power, and expectations. Every day, 9.5 trillion times.