Binance Leads Centralized Exchanges as Trading Activity Cools

Centralized exchanges (CEX) saw a decline in trading activity during the first half of 2026, with volume easing from last year's highs as the broader market softened. The gap between venues widened once volume was read alongside reserves, stablecoins, Bitcoin custody, and open interest.

Binance led both spot and futures volume while also holding the largest clean-asset and stablecoin base in the market. Coinbase Pro held the most Bitcoin of any venue, with 851,807 BTC under custody.

The other shift was scope, with tokenized stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), pre-initial public offering (pre-IPO) exposure, and broader traditional finance instruments moving deeper into centralized exchange product lines. This pushed competition from which token an exchange lists toward which venue can connect crypto liquidity to broader markets.

The reserve base separated the field more than volume did, with Binance holding about $131.9 billion in assets and $112.5 billion in clean assets as of June 30. Open interest fell from January highs and stayed concentrated at the top, with Binance leading by a wide margin and Bybit, Bitget, and OKX forming the next liquid derivatives tier.

Adjusted for core reserves, the open interest ranking reordered, showing that while Binance carried the largest open interest in absolute terms, its ratio stayed below 22%, lower than every derivatives-heavy peer. This suggests that Binance's derivatives activity sits on a far larger reserve base than any peer.