Binance and Coinbase Lead the Exchange Hierarchy in the First Half of 2025
Binance has become the leader in all the most significant indicators of centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. Whether it is trading volume or stablecoin reserves or on-chain activity, the 2025 performance of Binance illustrates the unrivaled power of the company within the changing Web3 ecosystem.
In the meantime, Coinbase still targets institutional investors, especially on Ethereum, and mid-sized exchanges such as Bybit , OKX, and Bitget have stayed in the mix but significantly lag in any aggregate metrics.
Binance Leads Across Spot, Futures, and On-Chain Activity
The dominance of Binance is evidenced by its pure trading volume. The platform traded almost $2T in spot for the first half of 2025 with a huge market share of 42%. It operates in both Bitcoin and altcoins and is especially dominant in the altcoin market.
The platform is even more powerful in the derivatives market. It handled $4.1T in Bitcoin perpetual futures, or 38% of all world trading.
This overshadows the action of other exchanges: Bitget, Bybit, and OKX lag behind with 19.3%, 16.8%, and 16.7% shares, respectively. Taken together, all other exchanges are less than 10% of perpetual BTC futures trading, with Coinbase only 0.03%.
Stablecoin Liquidity: Binance’s Liquidity Engine
The stablecoin reserves on the centralized exchanges are also dominated by the largest exchange. Its reserves of stablecoins (USDT and USDC) amount to $31.67B, giving it 59.65% of all reserves across the 10 largest exchanges.
This liquidity pool had been instrumental in keeping deep order books and low slippage especially in volatile trading times.
Following Binance are OKX and Coinbase with 7.99B and 6.05B respectively. Bybit owns 2.86B, whereas Kraken and KuCoin have smaller shares in the stablecoin reserve market.
Coinbase Holds Institutional Ground With Massive Reserves
As Binance leads its rivals in retail trading and user volumes, Coinbase is a market leader in institutional services. It has the biggest total reserves of any crypto, with $123B in BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC representing 31.2% of all centralized exchange reserves. Binance comes right behind at 110B (27.7%).
The position of Coinbase is enhanced further on Ethereum, where it has conducted more than 17M on-chain transactions during H1 2025. This log includes a healthy ETH, USDT, USDC, and BTC volume, showing that Coinbase is still useful to institutions as a gateway they can trust.
Binance Dominates TRON and Altcoin On-Chain Activity
Binance is crushing it on the TRON, where stablecoins are transferred at low fees, with $29.6M transfers. Binance has seen the highest number of deposits and withdrawals of altcoins, exceeding 700K transactions, which implies that users’ activity level and asset exchange are very fast.
Coinbase is second with 600K transactions but this is likely due to people harvesting their profits or liquidating out of the platform.
Mid-Tier Players Stay Competitive
By the first half of 2025, Binance had confirmed its status as the most advanced and dominant crypto exchange because of its scale, liquidity and user diversity. Coinbase maintains powerful credibility with institutions and Ethereum-focused action.
Although minor players do not seem to lose significance, the market is obviously monopolized by several giants where Binance is defining the future at virtually all levels in terms of centralized trade.
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