Recently, the 2025 annual reports of leading global exchanges have been released one after another. These reports not only reviewed their respective platforms' milestone achievements but also revealed that the crypto industry is gradually moving from a phase of rapid expansion to a new cycle of structured competition. Throughout the year, regulatory compliance, institutional entry, product innovation, and ecosystem development became key themes, with major platforms responding to market volatility and intensified competition through differentiated strategies. Binance solidified its leading position with 300 million users and $34 trillion in trading volume; Coinbase became the first crypto-native company to be included in the S&P 500 index; Bybit successfully withstood a $1.45 billion hack; LBank became the only centralized exchange (CEX) to achieve double-digit growth; and Bitget first proposed the concept of a "panoramic exchange"...
Now we delve into the 2025 annual reports of major exchanges to uncover the real winners and losers hidden behind the data.
I. Who is the true king of liquidity?
Liquidity is the core competitiveness of exchanges, and the trading volume data of each platform in 2025 directly reflects its market share and user activity.
Binance remains the liquidity king with an absolute trading volume of $34 trillion; Bybit and Bitget have performed strongly in the derivatives market, with Bitget's monthly trading volume reaching $680.3 billion, showing a clear institutional-driven characteristic. LBank led the growth charts with a year-on-year increase of 209%, and its spot and futures trading have repeatedly ranked among the top five globally; OKX has shown particularly outstanding growth in licensed and compliant markets.
The following table summarizes the key metrics for each platform (based on annual report data):
Absolute Scale: The Moat of Giants
Binance : With a total annual trading volume of $34 trillion and spot trading volume exceeding $7.1 trillion, it continues to hold the top spot globally. Retail trading volume increased by 125% year-on-year, far exceeding the 21% increase from institutional trading, demonstrating the continued strong retail driving force. On most trading days, nearly half of the global BTC and ETH trading volume occurs on the Binance platform, where its deep liquidity constitutes an unshakeable competitive barrier.
Coinbase: Daily trading volume of approximately $4.06 billion (CMC data). As the preferred platform for listed companies and institutions, its institutional custody business is worth $300 billion, giving it a dominant position in the compliance market.
Bybit: Monthly trading volume remains the second highest globally. Even during market downturns, 24-hour spot trading volume still reached $9.1 billion (December 22), demonstrating the platform's resilience in the derivatives and spot markets.
LBank: The average daily trading volume reached $10.5 billion throughout the year, with a peak spot trading volume exceeding $4.23 billion and a single-day market share of up to 4.6%. According to data from Messari and CoinGecko, LBank's spot and futures trading volumes have repeatedly ranked among the top five globally.
Bitget ranks fourth globally in derivatives trading volume, with a total annual trading volume of $8.17 trillion and a monthly average trading volume of $680.3 billion. Internal data shows that the average daily trading volume of futures is approximately $16 billion, while the average daily total trading volume of spot, derivatives, and on-chain products is close to $18 billion.
OKX: The platform's global trading volume increased by 16% year-on-year, DEX trading volume surged by approximately 262%, and the number of daily active wallets increased by more than 100% year-on-year.
Gate: Spot business performed exceptionally well, with monthly trading volume exceeding $160 billion at its peak. Its global spot market share increased to 6.04%, and its derivatives market share rose to 10.6%. Options open interest increased 21-fold, firmly establishing it as one of the world's top 5 options exchanges.
HTX: Annual trading volume reached $3.3 trillion (up 39% year-on-year), spot trading volume was $1.9 trillion USDT (up 30%), and contracts trading volume was $1.4 trillion (up 50%), showing a structural change where "contract trading volume grew faster than spot trading volume".
Relative growth rate: LBank's explosive growth
In 2025, while Binance boasted a massive trading volume, its growth rate was only 18%, indicating it had entered a mature phase. OKX's 16% growth rate reflected cautious expansion within a compliant market. Bitget, on the other hand, achieved rapid growth through institutional participation, with institutional spot trading volume surging to 82% and institutional market maker futures trading volume increasing to 60%. LBank, though smaller in scale, led all exchanges with a staggering 209% year-on-year increase in daily trading volume, demonstrating remarkable growth. Its leading advantage in niche liquidity markets makes it a "king" of emerging assets, particularly suitable for users seeking high returns.
Meme Coin Spot Market : LBank's market share surged from 11.2% at the beginning of the year to 28.9% by the end, becoming the only top exchange to double its share (CoinGecko 2025 Memecoin Report). Throughout the year, its Meme spot trading volume consistently ranked among the top three centralized exchanges. During the Meme supercycle, LBank not only seized the market opportunity but also established a monopolistic advantage through systematic operations.
Differentiated Positioning in the Contract Market: On August 4th, LBank's derivatives trading volume jumped to fourth globally. Its performance in specific market segments was particularly outstanding: ZENT accounted for 88.45%, EDEL 100%, XAUT 20.7%, SAROS 21.4%, DGB 43%, and XCH 97%. As of December 10th, the open interest of several popular contract assets continued to rank among the top CEXs (CoinGlass data): BSV 78.67%, TON 43.29%, ATOM 45.7%, BCH 34.76%, SHIB 13.38%, and DOGE 10.61%. These data reveal a key trend: LBank has established a clear differentiated position in the Altcoin and cutting-edge asset contract market, providing a core trading venue for high-risk-averse traders to proactively position themselves in emerging assets.
Strategic Insights: Large and Specialized vs. Small and Comprehensive
Comparing the trading volume data of various exchanges clearly reveals two different competitive strategies:
The "large and sophisticated" model , represented by Binance and Bybit, builds a moat through absolute scale and liquidity depth, dominating the trading of mainstream cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, and mainstream DeFi tokens) and attracting a core customer base of institutions and large investors.
The "small but comprehensive" model , exemplified by LBank, focuses on highly volatile assets such as Meme coins, new coins, and Altcoin. Through rapid new listings and value discovery capabilities, it attracts retail investors and traders with a high risk appetite, establishing a monopolistic advantage in specific market segments.
In the context of the diversified development of the crypto market, both models have their place. However, it's worth noting that as institutionalization increases, the "wealth creation effect" becomes more attractive to retail investors – LBank's 209% growth rate reflects this trend. By differentiating itself in the Altcoin and cutting-edge asset contract sectors, LBank has avoided direct competition with giants (BTC, ETH, etc.), instead establishing a near-monopolistic liquidity advantage in the highly volatile, non-consensus asset market.
II. New Assets: Who is the Real "Wealth Creation Machine"?
New product launch quantity: The art of balancing speed and quality
In terms of the number of new assets listed, major exchanges show distinctly different paces and orientations. LBank ranks among the top with 1,191 tokens, averaging more than 3 new tokens per day, of which initial public offerings account for 40.47% (482 tokens), maintaining extremely high activity on the supply side of new assets.
Binance expanded to 490 tokens and 1,889 spot trading pairs (up 18% year-over-year), with contract products covering 584 tokens (up 56%). HTX launched 166 new tokens in 2025, adopting a relatively selective strategy overall. Coinbase set a new record for the number of assets listed in a single year, increasing its platform tokens to 359 by the end of 2025, but still the fewest among the top exchanges.
Gate continues its highly diversified listing strategy, with 2,085 tokens in circulation on its platform (the most among CEXs) and supporting 244 ETF tokens, making it the exchange with the most diverse ETF offerings. Bitget currently has 727 tokens in circulation. OKX has been relatively restrained in its listing pace in 2025, with a current circulating supply of 363 tokens.
The different paces of new product launches essentially reflect the differences in the strategic choices made by the platforms:
- Binance and OKX adopt a "quality-first" strategy, reducing the cost of trial and error for users through strict screening and strengthening their friendliness to mainstream assets and institutions.
- Gate and LBank tend to adopt a "coverage-first" strategy, providing users with more opportunities for early participation and value discovery.
- HTX and Bybit are exploring a "precision targeting" approach, with the number of listed coins ranking in the middle, and they are launching high-quality assets before the market overheats through forward-looking analysis.
- Bitget is implementing an "ecosystem integration" strategy, focusing not only on native crypto assets, but also on cross-industry collaborations such as tokenized stocks and on-chain trading to build a differentiated positioning for UEX (panoramic exchange).
- Due to compliance requirements and its status as a publicly listed company, Coinbase has significantly increased the number of new listings, but its overall pace (speculative listing speed) remains relatively conservative, with each coin requiring strict securities testing and regulatory review.
Asset Performance: LBank ranks first in terms of the proportion of 100x coins.
If the number of new listings reflects the platform's breadth of coverage, then asset growth directly determines the wealth effect on users. In this dimension, LBank demonstrates a significant and overwhelming advantage.
Of the assets launched on LBank in 2025, 1.34% were 100x coins. The top 10 new assets saw an average increase of 762x, with 16 projects achieving 100x growth, such as WWB (336x), LAUNCHCOIN (152x), BLUM (123x), and HYPER (119x); 39 projects saw increases exceeding 50x; and 183 projects saw increases exceeding 10x. LBank's stable ability to generate high-yield assets has earned it the title of "100x Gems Hub" from CoinGecko.
Compared to the performance of high-quality assets disclosed in the 2025 annual reports of other exchanges:
- Bybit: Trump surged 548%, TUNA jumped 2,637% on its first day of trading, MET rose 255% on its first day of trading, and XAUT rose 127%;
- HTX: $TRUMP saw a maximum increase of 10 times after its launch, $M achieved a 42-fold increase, $PIPPIN accumulated a 95-fold increase this year, $DONKEY rose 69 times, and $BANANAS31 increased 13 times. Regarding contracts, 208 new assets were launched throughout the year, of which nearly 132 were high-quality assets with gains exceeding 200%, accounting for over 63%.
- Bitget: Launched tokenized stock products in September, and by the end of the year, the cumulative trading volume of tokenized stock futures exceeded US$17 billion, forming a unique feature in the TradFi × Crypto integration track.
While Bybit and HTX offer impressive examples of explosive growth in individual assets, LBank has established a significant advantage in terms of systematic discovery capabilities, consistent returns on assets with 100x returns, and wealth creation efficiency that is friendly to retail investors. This is not accidental, but stems from LBank's systematic capabilities in trend judgment, asset selection, initial offering timing, and liquidity support. Innovative products such as LBANK EDGE, LBmeme Launch, and BoostHub have built a systematic alpha capture mechanism, enabling the platform to complete the construction of trading scenarios and liquidity deployment before the emergence of non-consensus assets and new narratives.
III. Increased Differentiation Among Top Platform Tokens and Weakening Value Contribution Capacity
In 2025, the mainstream exchange platform token market showed a clear trend of differentiation. Market data shows that only BNB and OKB achieved positive growth, while other platform tokens generally faced pressure, further solidifying the "the strong get stronger" pattern of platform tokens.
Despite 2025 being a bull market, mid-tier platform tokens generally performed poorly, a stark contrast to their popularity among users during the previous bull market.
- With a market capitalization of $128B, BNB remains the top-ranked platform token by market capitalization, representing a 30% year-to-date increase, and demonstrating strong liquidity with a daily trading volume of $2.15B.
- OKB led all platform tokens with an annual increase of 124%, despite having a market capitalization of only $2.41 billion, its growth rate was the most impressive.
- BGB's market capitalization reached $2.64 billion, but its annual decline was as high as 43%.
- HT's annual decline was 91%, its market capitalization shrank to $17 million, and its daily trading volume was only $0.45 million.
- GT is down 47% this year, with a market capitalization of $1.19 billion and a daily trading volume of $4.5 million.
- LBank launches LBK buyback program
The divergence in the platform token market in 2025 revealed a key trend: the issuance of platform tokens alone is no longer sufficient to support long-term value, and the contribution of these tokens to exchanges is weakening. The success of BNB and OKB stemmed from the scale advantages, fee discounts, and staking rewards of the exchanges behind them, while the pressure on smaller platform tokens reflects a re-evaluation of the market's ability to capture value.
It's worth noting that leading exchanges like Bybit, Coinbase, and Upbit have yet to issue their own platform tokens, demonstrating that platform tokens are not a necessity for exchange development. As user expectations gradually return to rationality, for platform tokens to maintain long-term viability, they must rely on more substantial mechanism designs—including buybacks, burns, real yield distribution, or clear ecosystem rights binding—rather than being driven solely by emotions or narratives.
IV. In-depth analysis of exchange competition strategies
By comparing three core dimensions—trading volume, new asset listings, and asset performance—the strategic differences and core positioning of major exchanges have become clear. Meanwhile, from the accelerated implementation of compliance frameworks to the concentrated test of major hacking incidents, the response strategies and key actions of each exchange clearly outline their respective strategic orientations and competitive potential. Overall, the major events of this year revolved around global compliance, institutional investment, crisis management, and brand crossover.
Binance: The "Amazon" of the crypto industry
The platform received full authorization from the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), becoming the first global exchange approved under this framework. Meanwhile, in March 2025, Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX injected approximately $2 billion in stablecoin funds into Binance, marking its first major institutional-level investment and significantly strengthening Binance's strategic position in the Middle East financial center.
Binance has built a highly self-reinforcing, scale-driven competitive system based on its scale, compliance, and liquidity depth. With over 300 million users and an annual trading volume of $34 trillion, the logic of "scale as a barrier" has been fully validated. The platform boasts a compliance team of 1,280 people, has obtained 29 compliance and security certifications, and its publicly verified user asset balance, supported by reserves, reaches $162.8 billion. Meanwhile, Binance Alpha 2.0 aims to surpass $1 trillion in trading volume by 2025, attracting 17 million users, demonstrating its ability to continuously innovate despite its massive scale. Its strategic positioning is clear: an all-rounder, a liquidity hub for mainstream assets, and an "infrastructure-level" platform compatible with both institutional and retail investors.
Coinbase: Wall Street's Crypto Gateway
Coinbase's core competitiveness stems from its compliance backing and deep integration with the mainstream financial system. As the first CEX to be included in the S&P 500 (effective May 19, 2025), Coinbase has established extremely high trust thresholds on the institutional side, with institutional custody reaching $300 billion. It also integrates DEX trading access to Base and Solana, holding millions of tokens. In 2025, it plans to complete 10 acquisitions and invest in over 600 projects through Base Ventures, gradually building a full-stack service capability from project incubation, custody, trading to settlement. Its strategic role is clear: a bridge connecting traditional finance and the crypto world, and the preferred entry point for institutional funds.
Bybit: The Battlefield for Professional Traders
This year has been challenging yet resilient for Bybit. With derivatives as its core competitive advantage, Bybit continues to dominate the perpetual contract market. In 2025, in handling a $1.45 billion theft, Bybit successfully transformed its crisis management capabilities into new brand assets, making it a model for the industry. Regulatoryly, Bybit obtained Austrian authorization in Vienna, complying with EU MiCA regulations, and a virtual asset platform operating license in the UAE. Byreal DEX surpassed $1 billion in trading volume within 10 weeks, and Bybit TradFi offers leverage up to 500x, further amplifying the aggregation effect of high-frequency, professional, and aggressive traders. Bybit's positioning is very clear: the king of derivatives, the preferred battlefield for professional traders.
LBank: Hunter of 100x Coins
LBank's core brand identity is highly focused and easily recognizable—a hunter of 100x coins and a wealth-creation machine for retail investors. Through a systematic value discovery mechanism, cutting-edge narrative capture capabilities, and strategic initial asset allocation, LBank has established a near-monopoly in the new Altcoin asset market, including Meme. In 2025, its initial asset offerings saw the highest overall growth globally, making it the most direct beneficiary and biggest winner of the supercycle of Altcoin like Meme. The platform's user base has grown by 33% annually; its spot and futures trading volumes have repeatedly ranked among the top five globally.
On September 26, 2025, LBank became a regional sponsor of the Argentine national team, covering the entire 2026 FIFA World Cup cycle. Unlike other exchanges that choose teams or clubs, LBank directly targets the top-tier IP of a "national team," achieving a significant boost in brand penetration in the Latin American market—data shows that user growth in emerging markets such as Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia is particularly rapid. Furthermore, on its tenth anniversary, LBank launched a $1 billion talent incubation program to support Web3 innovators, developer education, and infrastructure development, demonstrating the platform's commitment to the long-term development of the industry. LBank's strategy focuses more on user education and building an innovative ecosystem, laying a solid competitive foundation for it in emerging asset sectors.
OKX: Compliance-Driven Growth
OKX's differentiated advantages lie in its integrated approach of "compliance + technology + Web3 wallet," while also enhancing its international brand influence through partnerships with the McLaren F1 team and Manchester City Football Club. In 2025, its trading volume in the licensed market increased 53-fold, and its DEX trading volume surged by approximately 262% year-on-year. The platform continues to deepen its cooperation with Standard Chartered Bank and DBS Bank, achieving substantial breakthroughs in custody and fiat currency integration. The daily active users of its Web3 wallet increased by over 100% year-on-year, making OKX a typical representative of the "exchange + wallet" dual-engine model. Its strategic positioning is that of a compliance pioneer and a choice for technology geeks, with a long-term focus on Web3 infrastructure development.
Bitget: Founder of UEX (Panorama Exchange)
In 2025, Bitget officially proposed the concept of Universal Exchange (UEX), integrating traditional finance, crypto assets, on-chain trading, and AI into a unified ecosystem, setting a new standard for future exchanges. Institutional participation became key to growth, with the proportion of institutional spot trading volume surging from 39.4% in January to 82% in December, and the proportion of institutional market maker futures trading volume increasing from 3% to 60%. Bitget Onchain's cumulative trading volume exceeded $2.4 billion, and the cumulative trading volume of tokenized stock futures exceeded $17 billion. Simultaneously, 220 million BGB tokens were permanently burned to provide long-term support for the platform token's value. Bitget's strategic positioning is as a pioneer of panoramic exchanges, creating differentiation through cross-market integration.
Gate: A "Product Matrix" Global Expander
Gate is renowned for its product diversity and innovation density, making it one of the most experimental exchanges in the industry. The platform supports the most crypto tokens and ETF tokens among centralized exchanges (CEXs). Its Web3 products, such as Gate Perp DEX and Gate Swap, have accumulated over $25 billion in trading volume, with over 6.5 million on-chain transactions and over 100 million Gate Layer addresses. It is also an official sponsor of the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team and a sponsor of the Inter Milan football club's armband, bringing Web3 to a global audience. Its strategic positioning is as a diversified asset expert and a pioneer in product innovation, providing the market with more cutting-edge and alternative options.
HTX: A Veteran Who Traversed Bull and Bear Markets
HTX prioritizes long-termism, emphasizing stability, sustainability, and trust restoration. Through compliance implementation, user subsidies, and high-profile brand events, it effectively solidifies its platform's core customer base. Justin Sun's cover story in Forbes and the "Mars Project" space journey showcase its innovative marketing. The platform has obtained a NoC from the Pakistan Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority and has expanded its operations to Dubai and Australia. In 2025, while trading volume increased significantly, HTX saw a net increase of 160,000 users holding positions, bringing the total to over 868,000. Its over-the-counter trading services cover 3.93 million users, with a cumulative scale of approximately $360 billion, spanning 231 countries and regions. HTX's positioning is clear and pragmatic: a long-term practitioner and a "stabilizer" for the global deposit and withdrawal system.
V. Differentiation is a key variable in long-term competition.
An in-depth comparison of the 2025 exchange reports reveals a clear conclusion: as the crypto industry enters a phase of structured competition, differentiated positioning is replacing simple scale expansion as the core variable determining success or failure.
Binance built a "scale barrier" with 300 million users, Coinbase gained "mainstream recognition" with its inclusion in the S&P 500, Bybit demonstrated its professional strength through crisis management, and LBank proved its unique competitiveness in "value discovery" with a 209% increase in trading volume, a 28.9% market share in Meme, and the stable output of 16 100x coins.
In a structurally differentiated landscape where institutional funds dominate mainstream assets and retail investors continuously seek high-elasticity opportunities, LBank focuses on early asset discovery and capturing non-consensus narratives, allowing it to avoid a head-on war of attrition with leading exchanges. Instead, it has established a near-monopoly liquidity advantage in the high-volatility, strong-narrative asset sector.
Looking ahead to 2026, as the crypto industry further integrates with TradeFi, the competition among exchanges will no longer be about "who is bigger," but rather "who is more irreplaceable." Whether it's Bitget's UEX approach or LBank and MEXC's recent expansion into US stock trading and zero-fee systems, they all point to the same trend—trading platforms are evolving from "matching tools" into "distribution nodes for structural opportunities."
This article, "CEX 2025 Annual Report Review: LBank Breaks Through in Structured Competition," first appeared on ABMedia, a ABMedia .
