Binance Controlled 92% of Bitcoin Spot Trading Volume at End of 2022: Arcane Research

Binance’s market share of bitcoin (BTC) trading volume rose to 92% by the end of 2022, according to Arcane Research.

The exchange’s market share was just 45% at the start of last year, but the elimination of trading fees in June, not to mention the collapse of rival FTX in November, served to push users to Binance. which is the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume.

“No matter how you look at it in terms of trading activity, Binance is the crypto market,” Arcane wrote. “After lifting trading fees for its BTC spot pairs this summer, Binance completely overtook all market share in the spot market.”

A report from CryptoCompare showed Binance’s overall year-end crypto market share was 66.7%. Coinbase (COIN) came in second with a relatively tiny 8.2%.

“Retail crypto could enter a dark age that takes forever to exit” should Binance fail, Edward Moya, a senior analyst at foreign-exchange trading firm Oanda, said. “Binance is too big … It is not healthy to have so much of the trading volume concentrated with any one exchange.”

Chatter about the solvency of Binance increased significantly after the collapse of FTX, and the exchange did suffer some outflows for a short period, though its business has stabilized since. A market share this high could become problematic for the industry if Binance were to encounter any issues, whether regulatory or mistrust from users.

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether Binance complied with anti-money-laundering laws and sanctions. Last month, the exchange lost its auditor, Mazars Group, which announced a pause in its work with crypto exchanges looking to produce a proof of reserves.