Crypto derivatives remains resilient in March as spot trading took bigger hits

March activity on centralized exchanges slowed down as a whole, following the trend for the whole of Q1. Crypto derivatives remained more resilient, finishing the month with a smaller contraction. 

In March, centralized trading for all crypto assets slowed down, following the overall trend of losing volumes for the whole of Q1. Derivative trading proved more resilient, only contracting by 5%.

Centralized exchanges brought in global traffic, though mostly from crypto-friendly regions. The March outflow reflected bearish attitudes and outflows from the South Korean market, as well as the US market. Binance’s traffic and activity reflected robust levels of interest from other global markets.

Spot trading lost 16.6% despite inflows from whales and selling pressure for Bitcoin (BTC), as well as Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL). Spot exchanges also carried smaller liquidity in the form of stablecoins, while most of the extra liquidity still supported derivative trading. 

In March, stablecoins on all centralized exchanges declined, with the total balance sinking from over 48B down to 45B tokens. 

US-based traders drive exchange outflows for spot volume and crypto derivatives

The loss of momentum affected mostly three exchanges – Crypto.com (down by 43.9%), Bybit (down by 52.6%), and Bitfinex (down by 31.1%). Some of the spot trading traffic moved to HTX, increasing volumes by 29.4% for the month. 

Derivative exchange activity moved back to Kraken, up by 28.3% for March. The traffic moved from Crypto.com, which lost 39.3% of derivative activity. Both Crypto.com and Coinbase lost traffic, signaling an outflow of US-based traders. Despite this, US-based markets remained the most liquid for the first quarter of 2025. 

Traffic to crypto exchanges only declined by 3% in the past month. The exchange activity on spot and derivative markets is also not sorted based on market makers or bots. Some of the more dramatic trading spikes may be anomalies or deliberate bot-driven trades. 

Exchanges also separated themselves based on regional traffic inflows. Binance saw relatively small outflows while taking traffic from India, Vietnam, and Korea. Coinbase, on the other hand, reflected the lost confidence of US traders, erasing the effect of the US Presidential elections. 

The outflow of spot traders is also noted on DEX markets. Currently, decentralized markets make up around 10% of CEX spot trading. Despite this, the volatile market presented opportunities for risky decentralized bets. In March and early April, Hyperliquid turned into one of the busiest DEXs by daily volumes. 

Binance retains the liveliest asset flows

Binance was one of the centralized markets with the most active asset flows. The CEX is one of the main venues for derivative trading, seeing some of the largest daily liquidations. 

Based on open positions, Binance remains a proxy for the entire derivative and futures market. The CEX is also a benchmark for spot volumes, with over 29.5% of the entire market including small and niche exchanges. For spot volumes, Binance was a leader, with over 60% of all activity against a shortlist of other large exchanges, based on data by Newshedge. 

The CEX also saw the liveliest inflows of BTC, ETH, and stablecoins. The exchange carries more constant balances with a robust supply of coins and tokens. In March, Binance saw a net outflow of BTC, but is now recovering the available balance. 

Despite the ongoing activity, March was the slowest month of the year so far. Binance dominated all other exchanges in terms of trading volumes, but the overall activity followed the weakening performance from January and February. 

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