The ongoing crypto trend has halved total trading activity since the October 2025 crash.
According to CryptoQuant, the volume of crypto transactions on the central exchanges (CEXes) has decreased by 48% to $4.3 trillion in March 2026.
Notably, the October crash showed a volume of activity of around $8.2 trillion, while CryptoQuant noted that the decline was a ‘good market freeze’ after the 2024 peak.
It is at its lowest level since October 2024, reflecting a sharp cooling in market participation after the previous peak.
Interestingly, the sell-off has dominated CEX trading. Perpetuals (often referred to as perps) allow traders to trade with opportunities to maximize potential profits without expiration like Option contracts.
As of March, perps were worth $3.5 trillion in CEX trades. In contrast, Spot transactions only handled $0.8 trillion, meaning that perps were more than 4x more than Spot volumes.
Meanwhile, perp volumes have also seen a a large decrease for the last five consecutive months. This was not a surprise, however, as interest in the speculation has declined during the crypto winter.
Binance share drops by 5%, but still leads
From a platform perspective, Binance has maintained its industry lead despite the competition.
CryptoQuant reported that Binance led the market in spot trading volume with a market share of 32%.
Binance’s Spot trading volume so far in 2026 is about $1 trillion, compared to $263 billion for MEXC, and $206 billion for Bybit.
Bybit and HTX are almost tied for market share at 7%, while Coinbase ranks fifth at 6.6% in market share.
Despite its strong authority, Binance’s broad area of the market slipped to last October 37.5% to the current reading of 32% -a decrease of 5% amid the strengthened crypto winter and increased competition from hostile platforms.
Despite this, Binance’s share of outbound trading remained unchanged at 40%. According to a special report by CoinGlass, Binance has been leading the futures market due to its deep liquidity.
Overall, the main sector may be far from the front of a strong recovery even if BTC is hovering around $70K. With global tensions escalating in Q2, it remains to be seen whether the sector will turn the tide.
Brief Summary
- Binance’s market share has dropped by 5% since October, but it has maintained its lead in spot crypto trading.
- Perps have passed the Spot trading event more than four times, confirming the speculative interest in the established trade.
