The number of traders is increasing more than before as more people are generally becoming more interested in ways to become more financially independent and as thus in search of skills like trading.
Does the number of traders directly affect the volatility of the market? If it does, can we assume that trading was easier before with less traders (less volatility) than now when there are more traders, and the market more volatile?
I actually don't see it that way, the higher numbers of traders in the market doesn't affect the volatility of the market, what I think that affect the volatility is the market cap, if the market cap is high, their wouldn't be much volatility, but if the market cap is low, the volatility will be very high, that's why shit coin gives more roi than Bitcoin or Ethereum.
And another thing I think that easily moves the market is when those institute and the bigger boys enters the market, at that time, for sure the volatility will be very high, but it doesn't happen that often and it's just happen in a short period of time.