Centralized markets went through five months of sliding spot volume. As the crypto market contracted, Binance led the slide in trading.
Spot volume on the biggest centralized exchanges has been sliding for five straight months. The initial event on October 10-11 led to a contraction of derivative liquidity as well as spot trading.
Crypto spot volume staged a small recovery in January, but overall trading has weakened in the past 12 months. October’s liquidation event only accelerated the slide.
Binance shrinks its influence for spot volume
Spot volume shifted across markets, leaving Binance with a shrinking share. Binance was still the target for BTC and ETH deposits, but trading activity remained low. Selling usually happened during short-term recoveries, and activity remained subdued.
Binance retained a share of 20% of all spot volumes, while 68% shifted to smaller markets with less visible brands.
Spot volumes on Binance lost their influence and are down to around 20% of total activity. | Source: CoinMarketCap
One reason for the outflow from spot trading is the decline in altcoin activity. Altcoin volume on Binance remains below 40%, down from peaks of around 60%. Altcoin volumes declined as traders shifted to memes or unlisted assets on DEXs. However, DEXs cannot compensate for the weakened market sentiment.
DEX volumes make up 14.83% of CEX activity, down from over 21% in the summer of 2025. The short life cycle of tokens also meant a shift in the type of traders, who no longer bet on the return of older assets. Instead, spot volume shifted to newly launched meme tokens, which did not catch up with the valuations of earlier coins and tokens.
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Spot volumes are now at around $111B daily, down from over $518B in October 2025. The decline coincides with weakened open interest and volumes on derivative markets.
The altcoin season index also shows an outflow of interest from those assets. The index is back down to 35 points, indicating Bitcoin season, as the most liquid asset usually has the most reliable recoveries.
PancakeSwap loses dominance of spot volume
The outflow from the Binance ecosystem is also observed on decentralized spot markets. PancakeSwap lost its share of spot trading, down from 77% in the summer of 2025 to the current level of 12%.
One of the main reasons is the slowdown of meme token trading on Binance and a renewed shift to Solana. However, even the Solana ecosystem could not salvage DEX volumes.
Overall, spot trading shifted to short-term assets, including PumpSwap token pairs. Some of the liquidity from DeFi shifted to lending, leaving traders with a more limited scope.
Despite the increased supply of stablecoins, spot activity did not react as during previous cycles.
