Decentralized exchanges are gaining momentum, while Binance is losing ground among centralized ones

According to a report by 0xScope, the market for centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (CEXs) has undergone dramatic changes since last year. For example, institutional investment in Web3 came into full force in early 2024 after the approval of Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds in January and Ethereum (ETH) in July. Bitcoin reached a new all-time high, surpassing $73,000 in March 2024, followed by another halving a month later. For most of this year, the total value of the cryptocurrency market has exceeded $2 trillion, which is more than in 2021.

Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges have seen a surge in activity.

The 0xScope report used data for the period from October 9, 2023 to October 9, 2024. It includes the 22 largest centralized exchanges (by total market volume): Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, MEXC Global, Gate.io, Crypto.com, Huobi, KuCoin, Upbit, Coinbase, Bitrue, LBank, Kraken, CoinEx, BitMEX, Bitstamp, BtcTurk Pro, bitFlyer, Gemini, Binance US, and Coinone.

The total trading volume on these CEXs during the period amounted to $54 trillion. And the total spot trading volume over the past 12 months amounted to $14.6 trillion. As expected, Binance remains the leader with a volume of $5.78 trillion or 39.54% of the market. However, the loss of Binance’s market share is most noticeable in spot trading: -13% year-on-year.

Bybit moved up from 7th place with a 3.2% market share to 2nd place with an 8.51% market share.
OKX ranks 3rd with 6.38%.
Upbit dropped from 2nd place (6.8% share) to 4th place this year (5.77%).
Coinbase dropped from 3rd place (5.8%) to 5th (5.68%).

Of the 22 exchanges, half allow trading in crypto derivativesDerivatives trading involves an agreement between a buyer and a seller to exchange a specific asset at a specific price and quantity on a specific date.. These exchanges processed a total derivatives trading volume of $39.38 trillion over the past 12 months, almost three times the total spot trading volume.

Binance’s market share decreased from 50.9% to 42.5% year-on-year.
OKX’s market share increased from 15.5% to 19.83%.
Bybit also saw an increase from 11.3% to 13.98%.

Coinbase and Upbit, two exchanges with large spot trading volumes, are not included in the analysis of derivatives trading in this report. Upbit does not support derivatives trading due to a ban in South Korea. Meanwhile, Coinbase supports derivatives trading through its subsidiary Coinbase International Exchange.

Who is taking market share in Binance?

The three exchanges below were the biggest reasons for Binance’s leadership decline:

OKX – an increase from 13.4% to 16.19%.
Bybit – growth from 9.6% to 12.5%.
Bitget – growth from 7.0% to 10.28%.

OKX, Bybit, and Bitget remain the second, third, and fourth largest exchanges in the world, respectively. MEXC Global is firmly in fifth place, despite a decline in market share from 6.9% to 4.1% year-on-year.

What happens on decentralized exchanges (DEX)

Ethereum’s dominance is declining with TVL (total blocked value) increasing in protocols built on other networks such as Bitcoin, BNB Chain, Solana, Tron, and several Layer 2 (L2) networks.

Over the past 12 months (October 2023 — October 2024), trading volumes on DEX have increased significantly. In March 2024, DEX collectively processed more than $250 billion in trades for the first time since December 2022. The same situation repeated itself three months later in June 2024.

As of October 17, 2024, the ratio of DEX spot trading volumes to CEX was 13.6%. In other words, for every $1 billion of spot trading on CEX, there was $136 million of trading on DEX.

Tokens of centralized exchanges

BNB (supported by Binance, native BNB Chain token)
LEO (by Bitfinex)
OKB (from OKX)
BGB (from Bitget)
MNT (native Mantle token, supported by Bybit)
HT (from Huobi, now has an HTX ticker)
KCS (from Kucoin)

BNB is one of the five largest cryptocurrencies in the world by market capitalization and is used not only on the Binance exchange but also in the BNB Chain and thousands of projects using this network.

In terms of weekly trading volume, BNB’s highest figure was $41.32 billion during the week of Bitcoin’s all-time high (March 19, 2024). This year, the average weekly trading volume of BNB is around $8.57 billion. The BNB token has gradually risen from $200 in October 2023 to $710 in June 2024, reaching an all-time high. In fact, since March 2024, BNB has mostly fluctuated between $500 and $600. Amid the growth of the cryptocurrency market in 2023-2024, BNB’s market capitalization increased from $32.7 billion in October 2023 to $110 billion in June 2024.
The second leading exchange token in terms of trading volume is MNT, followed by BGB.
OKB reached its record high in March 2024 ($72.22), but this token was mostly in the $40 to $60 price range for most of the year.
The most noticeable drop was observed in HT, which gradually fell from $2.30 in October 2023 to $0.50 this year.
LEO’s market capitalization increased from $3.5 billion in October 2023 to $5.5 billion a year later. A significant part of the growth occurred in March 2024.
MNT showed strong growth for most of 2024: from $1 billion in October 2023 to $4.7 billion in April 2024 before stabilizing at $2 billion.
OKB’s capitalization grew from $2.5 billion in October 2023 to $4.3 billion in March 2024, after which it gradually declined to the initial level of $2.5 billion.

Source: 0xScope