Thanks to record-breaking ETF launches by BlackRock and Fidelity, which accumulated $112 billion in bitcoin, as well as Donald Trump’s re-election in November, BTC crossed the $100 thousand mark. However, hype cycles create unreasonable optimism and the FOMO effect
In 2022, Bitget partnered with football legend Lionel Messi before he led the Argentine national team. This multi-year campaign resulted in tens of millions of new accounts on the exchange. Although the exchange is legally based in the Seychelles, most employees are located in the Singapore region. The crypto exchange Bitget was also the first to popularize copy trading in the crypto space. Clients can automatically execute trades that mimic the actions of top traders. This feature now accounts for 20% of its total trading volume.
Deribit is a giant in the offshore derivatives space, where, similar to the CME, traders can bet on the future price of assets using leverage. The firm specializes in options, which give purchasers the right to buy or sell tokens at specified prices over a set period. Options are particularly a key instrument for hedging exposure to volatile assets and implementing simple alpha-generating strategies. Dubai-based Deribit holds a notional crypto open interest—capital tied up in derivatives contracts—worth over $30 billion. Additionally, in 2024, its volume grew by 95% to $1.2 trillion. Its expansion into spot trading, futures, and perpetual contracts has broadened, creating a comprehensive service for its institutional clients. It also secured its spot and derivatives licenses in Dubai, a credible derivatives’ regulator.
Bitcoin’s rally has boosted Gemini’s assets by 34% over the past six months, reaching $19 billion. The crypto exchange, owned by billionaire brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, obtained licenses in France and Singapore, significantly expanding its international presence in 2024. Despite these changes, the exchange cut 10% of its staff.
Other key exchanges: Kraken, Crypto.com, Fidelity, OKX, Bybit, BitFlyer, and Bithumb. Together, they held more than $1.2 trillion in customer assets and had 438 million visits in November 2024.
The above graph shows both fees and spreads and demonstrates that the largest exchanges by market share tend to have the lowest trading costs, except Coinbase. Robinhood, which caters to retail traders, has a zero-fee trading model, but the figures above do not include spreads, which in Robinhood’s case are a major part of their business model.
There are a few firms that offer both high-cost and low-cost alternatives for large users, and Coinbase and Revolut are great examples. For retail customers with low volumes, Coinbase has created a monthly subscription service called Coinbase One that eliminates fees.
At the end of 2024, there were at least half a billion cryptocurrency users in the world.
The largest concentration of traders is observed in the Asia-Pacific region, which has 160 million visitors. Europe is in second place with 134 million. The United States and Canada added another 56 million. Latin America and the Caribbean has 40 million traders, and Africa has the lowest number at 18 million.
Out of the 12 firms in the ranking, 3 firms not included in the ranking have 10+ million unique visitors each. Firms such as Binance, Crypto.com, and Bitget show the number of «users» on their websites in the tens and hundreds of millions, but do not clearly define the term. These firms, like many others interviewed in the study, did not provide up-to-date data on active accounts. However, SimilarWeb’s monthly data gives a clearer picture and an approximate number of users that is the same for all exchanges.
Binance, for example, had 75 million unique users (17% of the total) compared to 56 million (13%) for Coinbase. Robinhood came in fourth with 37 million.
However, some providers focus on only one or two locations. The 49 million traders in South Korea are mainly served by Bithumb and Upbit, which received a total of 70% of all visitors to cryptocurrency exchanges. A large portion of the remaining customers have left for larger exchanges such as Binance, ByBit, and Bitget.
The three largest firms serving 16 million visitors in Japan are Bitflyer, Coincheck, and Bitbank.
15 million visitors in Germany use Austrian Bitpanda, as well as Bitget and Binance.
In India, Binance is the largest exchange, accounting for almost all the country’s 6 million monthly visitors.
As for Latin America, 14 million visitors from Brazil mainly visited Binance, Singapore’s Gate.io (which has a sponsorship deal with soccer star Lionel Messi), and Coinbase.
With 18 million users per month, russia remains an important crypto trading hub. The largest platforms: ByBit (6.7 million), HTX (3.5 million), and Binance (2.4 million). Interestingly, back in 2023, Binance announced its withdrawal from russia and the sale of its russian business to CommEX.
Source: Forbes