What is the future of crypto exchanges?

“The future of the crypto exchange” was the title of a panel that was held during Zebu Live, an event organized by the company of the same name last week in London, UK, attended by Binance, Huobi, Globe, Swapsicle and influencer The Martini Guy.

To be specific, these were the panelists involved in the discussion:

• Diego Clerc, Binance;
• Michela Silvestri, Huobi;
• James West, Globe;
• Lee Erswell, Swapsicle;
• The Martini Guy, Crypto Saving Expert.

The situation of crypto exchanges during the bear market

In a period dubbed “crypto winter”, in view of continued price declines, one would expect trading to be not so prolific. Instead, Diego Clerc of Binance debuts on the Zebu Live stage saying:

“During the bear market we have less volatility but Binance has increased to 3 trillion dollars in volumes, with spot trading being the majority of the exchange’s revenue, but also lending and NFTs are doing well, which is second only after OpenSea.”

Big numbers for the exchange founded by CZ Zhao, not only for spot trading but also for NFTs.

Huobi, for its part, has also seen a big increase in trading, Michela Silvetri explains, especially on futures, which were used by 80% of the exchange’s institutional clients during the Merge period. On Huobi, the other top products are also then the Earn program for staking and also lending.

Sponsors of the event included also Swapsicle, which for its part explained that as a decentralized exchange its focus is obviously on DeFi, to provide transparency and decentralization to users.

How exchanges help the industry

Talking then about how trading platforms are helping the sector from their position of power, Silvestri explained that “exchanges are helping the Web3 sector thanks to incubators and investments in new and innovative projects,” which Huobi is doing, but also Binance with the BNB token that is used, among other things, to incentivize projects and communities in the DeFi world.

For his part,The Martini Guy explains that:

“exchanges care about profits, my job instead is to use exchanges and educate, focusing on giving advice.” 

In fact, according to the influencer and trading expert, exchanges would not be engaging in education in a disinterested way, because the kind of content the platforms share would be aimed at teaching how the exchange itself works and how to trade, so not really education for the long run. In contrast, the influencer founded Crypto Saving Expert for this very purpose, to empower users with knowledge.

The need for regulation

Hot topic of the panel and actually touched upon during virtually every speech was the regulation of the crypto industry.

In this case, primarily with regard to the futures market, which is still early stage because the products are there but there is still a need for regulation for mass adoption.

“In Europe, for example, we cannot provide futures for retail customers,” explained Binance and Huobi, both of which are platforms that long ago already had to shut down this type of service for European customers.