What are the top crypto exchanges?

Following the FTX event that suspended deposits and withdrawals, the question now comes to mind: which are the top crypto-exchanges? From the most popular ones such as Binance, Coinbase, Bitget to decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges such as Uniswap and Pancaswap, here’s the breakdown. 

Top crypto exchanges: the decline of Binance and the primacy of Coinbase 

According to data from CoinGecko, the crypto exchange that has always been the largest by trading volume, Binance, has suffered a sharp decline, dropping to 10th place in the rankings at the time of writing.

The probable causes of this collapse could be attributed to the latest statements by the US Congress, which seems to be intent on investigating what role Binance played in the collapse of FTX. This was said by Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a candidate for chair of the House Financial Services Committee. 

Alternatively, another reason for the drop could be the temporary suspension of deposits on Binance of Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) using Solana’s blockchain. A move aimed at protecting its traders, since Solana seems to be closely linked to FTX, but perhaps misinterpreted given the period of turbulence by crypto-exchanges themselves. 

Taking the top spot in the ranking of centralized crypto-exchanges is now Coinbase. Indeed, right in the midst of FTX’s collapse, it seems that the large number of new users who have registered on the American platform, would have even caused general network connection problems. 

Not only that, Coinbase also welcomed renewed interest from Ark Investment Management, which last week reportedly bought 420,949 shares of the exchange, expanding its exposure to more than $21.4 million. 

The largest crypto-exchanges: the situation of Bitget, Kraken and KuCoin

Next in the ranking of the top crypto-exchanges are also Bitget, Kraken, and KuCoin, which rank relatively 12th, 4th, and 3rd on CoinGecko. 

And latching onto the FTX case, Bitget has established “Builders Fund,” a $5 million fund to help traders and partners of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange. Users who met certain requirements had the opportunity to apply for support due precisely to losses. 

As far as Kraken is concerned, they had to block accounts traceable to FTX, Alameda Research and their executives, all at the explicit request of the authorities. 

And finally, KuCoin which declared that within a month it will launch Proof-of-Reserve at Merkle tree to regain trust among crypto users, still panicking over the FTX case. Stating this, it was the exchange’s own CEO, Johnny Lyu, who claims his Proof-of-Reserves as concrete proof of possession of declared reserves. 

Decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges: Uniswap and PancakeSwap

But for many other users, the FTX case has been a compelling reason to move with their funds into DeFi, onto decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges such as Uniswap and Pancakeswap. 

At the time of writing, Uniswap and Pancakeswap rank first and third respectively, in terms of trading volume in the overall category ranking. 

Not only that, recently Uniswap even surpassed Coinbase for Ethereum trading. The creator of the DEX, Hayden Adams, shared the news on Twitter commenting that perhaps more and more users are questioning CEXs (centralized crypto-exchanges) in favor of decentralized exchanges.