Binance is losing market share to these smaller exchanges

The world’s biggest crypto exchange Binance has lost stablecoin market share to several smaller crypto exchanges following the record $4.3 billion multi-agency settlement on November 21, research firm Kaiko wrote in an analyst note on Thursday.

Let’s dig in.

Stablecoin wobble

Binance has lost USDT and USDC market share to several smaller exchanges, losing 5% across all trading hours and up to 20% during US sessions, respectively, according to Kaiko.

Uniswap has been the biggest winner in terms of USDT market share, growing it by more than 50% during Asia and Europe’s trading sessions.

Still, its USDC share fell more than 35% in all sessions, except for Europe, where it dropped 20%, Kaiko reported.

“Since Binance’s settlement, both Binance and Uniswap have ceded significant USDC market share to Bybit,” Riyad Carey, research analyst at Kaiko, wrote in the research note.

The researchers singled out Bybit as one of the bigger winners, with its share of USDC growing 40% during US hours and 20% during all other hours.

The exchange surpassed Uniswap V3 in USDC volume in June, and since then it has outperformed in all weeks but one, Kaiko wrote.

Since the start of November, Bybit has facilitated $25 billion of USDC volume and $41 billion of USDT volume.

“This split is unprecedented for non-Coinbase [centralised exchanges], and even Coinbase itself no longer denominates pairs in USDC, instead opting for unified USD/USDC order books,” Carey wrote.

OKX remained the second largest USDT market during all trading sessions, and MEXC consistently came in third, benefitting from its ongoing zero-fee spot trading.

Top USD market players Coinbase and Kraken also lost market share to smaller exchanges, Kaiko wrote.

LMAX has grown its market share at least 40% in all but the Asia hours, while Bitfinex has posted similar gains in all but the U.S. and Europe overlap session.

Bitstamp has also gained market share.

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Tyler Pearson is a researcher at DL News. Got a tip? Reach out at ty@dlnews.com.