July 11 (Reuters) – Is the best exchange winning? Crypto platforms are competing for dominance in the United States – the world’s largest market – after a crackdown on regulations shook this sector.
Coinbase (COIN.O) and Binance, two of the largest crypto-exchanges operating in the US by market share, have lost ground this year. As of now, the former has dropped to approximately 51% from a peak of 62% in June, while the latter has fallen to 1.5%, down from 22.5% in January, according to data from Kaiko.
Both Coinbase and Binance have been sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) despite denying any wrongdoing. Their collapse has been caused by regulatory problems and other factors. Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX sparked crypto chaos last year.
The smell of blood
Kraken, Bitstamp and LMAX Digital are the other exchanges that have seen a surge in market share in the US, according to Kaiko Data. Kraken’s rate of growth has risen to 29%, with BinanceUS following in its wake.
“Dominance in the US market is really important,” said Ravi Doshi, co-heads of trading at Genesis Trading. “The majority of the trading volume happens during US trading hours because the most amount of capital is here and the most amount of interest from institutions is coming from the US.”
Guy Hirsch, global managing director at Kraken, noted a company had “dedicated significant time and resources to enhance the quality of its platform”. Bobby Zagotta, CEO of Bitstamp USA, said the recent growth of its economy is due to a “flight to quality” in the marketplace. Bitstamp’s global market share for exchanges that operate in the US grew to about 9%.
Coinbase and Binance.US – the American affiliate of the largest crypto-exchange in the world – refused to comment on the results.
‘TONS OF TOKENS’
The market share swings are occurring at a time of uncertainty for the digital assets industry. The SEC has
