Binance Is Losing Ground As The World’s Largest Exchange: 0X Report

Binance’s dominance over the centralized crypto exchange market has weakened over the past year, according to a new report from 0xScope.

Estimates from the blockchain analytics firm suggest that Binance’s trading volume and other indicators are “around 10% lower overall,” while competition from OKX and other “second-tier exchanges” grows stiffer.

Binance’s Second Tier Competitors

Per the report, Binance is still the clear leader in terms of global crypto volume, accounting for 51.2% of CEX volume share between October 17, 2022, and October 17, 2023.

That volume has declined on a week-by-week basis, however. Standing at 54.6% in October 2022, Binance’s dominance has fallen to roughly 45% since July.

Meanwhile, OKX’s volume share has skyrocketed from 10.5% last year to 16.1% in the most recently recorded week, establishing itself as a “solid no.2” among exchanges. Following behind it are Bybit, Bitget, and MEXC, all of which “maintained healthy growth trends in the past year.”

The ranking excluded major exchanges including Upbit and Coinbase due to their lack of derivatives trading volume. In the spot market, both exchanges ranked as the second and third largest platforms, with Upbit’s share improving remarkably from 5% to 15% in a 52-week span.

During this time, Binance’s spot market dominance has cratered to just 40%, down from 62% just one year ago. 0X says the decline may be due to the exchange’s listing strategy, since most popular coins sank in value immediately after listing on Binance.

By comparison, Binance’s derivatives volume has maintained more stability, though it still fell from 50% earlier in the year to 45% in more recent weeks. Over that same period, OKX’s volume share rose from 10% to 15%.

Binance happened to face a critical lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June, with allegations ranging from mismanagement of client funds to listing of multiple unregistered securities.

An On-Chain Look

Looking at blockchain data, Binance also holds more crypto asset value than any other CEX at 45%, down from 50% last year. Its biggest competitors on this front are Coinbase and Bitfinex – the latter of which maintains a close relationship with Tether, which holds $85 billion in reserves.

The exchange’s dominance comes down substantially when looking at the deposit addresses opened at each exchange. Both Binance and Coinbase hold equal weighting at roughly 30% each, but the former’s share returns to 40% when only counting active addresses.