Aug 12, 2022 at 11:47Independent company Similarweb, which analyzes web traffic of websites, noticed the change of leaders in the segment of crypto exchanges. The shift occurred during the so-called crypto winter, which is especially interesting. Considering the traditional problems with the reliability of trading volumes of exchanges, we found this independent look at the industry fascinating.
What’s the problem?
It’s well known that during the crypto winter, trading volumes have fallen a lot. The crypto market is stagnating, and crypto exchanges are not an exception. Almost every week, there is news that some exchange went bankrupt.
That’s why most of the open statistics on current trades are fake. Exchanges are trying to maintain the appearance of being good, but at the same time saving on everything and constantly cutting staff. And in the meantime, the market maker trades with itself, making up prices and volumes for beautiful external statistics. Yes, there are exchanges that show their data honestly, but they are few.
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In such conditions, it is even more interesting to look at the data of an independent statistics provider, which indirectly evaluates the growth or decline of the popularity of different crypto platforms via traffic numbers. Next, we selected the top 3 winners and losers in this prolonged crypto winter using traffic data from Similarweb.
Despite the significant decline in traffic to the sites of many exchanges this summer, the cumulative traffic to most cryptocurrency exchanges over the past three years has still increased. The only difference is the comparative growth rate, which we will discuss below.
Top 3: Losers
According to this statistics provider, Coinbase, Kraken and Binance are down 46%, 44% and 39% year over year, respectively, in terms of traffic.
The popular stock trading app Robinhood, which has recently been trading crypto as well, has also seen a dramatic drop in visitors — site traffic is down 65% compared to a year ago.
Top 3: Winners
A small regional exchange, WhiteBit, has shown impressive results in traffic inflow, which increased by 240% for the year. The company is actively supported by the authorities of Ukraine, the platform is integrated with the portal of state services and a mobile operator.
Bybit holds second place in traffic growth. Perhaps the increase in site traffic by 160% over the year was stimulated by the launch of new tools and structured products, reducing the risk of losses and the organization of attractive IEO.
Third place is a cryptocurrency exchange FTX, with a +128% year-over-year increase in network activity. The company has been actively conducting PR on the topic of the crypto crisis to create an image of an industry savior. FTX spent a lot of money on marketing and advertising and did not lay off employees to maintain the appearance of a successful business capable of overcoming the crypto winter.
Summing up
To understand FTX and Bybit’s breakout even better, here’s some comparative data.
Coinbase, Kraken and Binance, for example, saw site traffic increase 36%, 105% and 263%, respectively, over the period. But on exchanges such as Bybit and FTX, traffic grew by a fantastic 1,600% and 9,400%, respectively.
Even according to official data, FTX showed phenomenal growth in 2022 — in May, it overtook Coinbase in terms of trading volume for the first time in its history, increasing its market share from 5% to 44%. This was reported in a newsletter by independent analysts Kaiko.
When it comes to smaller exchanges, they suffered a significant decline in trading volumes during the crypto winter in most cases. The trend suggests that the market is consolidating amid prolonged bearish sentiment. In this harsh environment, smaller trading players are finding it increasingly challenging to survive competition from the giants. This leads to increasing bankruptcies among small or regional exchanges.
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