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Binance at 9 shows how crypto exchanges grew up
Binance’s rise from a 2017 spot exchange to a 316 million-user platform tracks the crypto industry’s shift toward derivatives, transparency, and super-apps.
Image: TNW
Binance now serves more than 316 million users across trading, payments, savings, tokenized securities, and access to traditional assets. According to a recent CoinDesk Research case study, that arc closely tracks how the centralized exchange market matured over the past decade.
The report breaks that evolution into five phases, starting with crypto’s earliest trading venues. In March 2010, the first recorded BTC price was $0.003 on BitcoinMarket.
Early exchanges were fragile despite their scale. Mt. Gox once handled about 80% of global volume before collapsing with 850,000 BTC missing. By 2016, zero-fee Chinese exchanges drove roughly 90% of global volume, only to be pushed offshore by domestic bans.
Binance’s launch in July 2017 marked the next shift. During the ICO boom, exchanges that could list tokens quickly captured demand, and CoinDesk Research says Binance became the world’s largest spot exchange within six months. The appeal was not just speed, but a broader mix of assets, deeper liquidity, and a more unified trading experience than fragmented regional rivals.
Derivatives, transparency, and the post-FTX reset
The next big change came as derivatives overtook spot trading. After BitMEX introduced perpetual swaps in 2016, derivatives volume surpassed spot in 2021 and reached 80.9% in September 2023, according to CoinDesk data.
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An EY report said futures and perpetual swaps accounted for 96.2% of monthly BTC and ETH derivatives volume by late 2023, with non-US markets driving more than 95% of global activity. Institutional demand also expanded, with CME Group Bitcoin futures topping $20 billion in notional open interest by late 2024.
Then came FTX. Its collapse in November 2022 — when it was the third-largest exchange and valued at $18 billion — made custody and transparency central competitive issues. Proof of Reserves shifted from optional disclosure to a baseline expectation. By April 2026, 62% of exchanges evaluated by CoinDesk provided those attestations, up from 49% last November.
CoinDesk Research says Binance held onto its lead as compliance, reserve reporting, and risk management became more important across the sector.
From exchange to financial super-app
The latest phase, covering 2025 to the present, is about convergence. Large centralized exchanges are increasingly combining:
- digital assets
- payments
- tokenized securities
- yield products
- traditional financial markets
CoinDesk Research points to Binance Alpha, tokenized U.S. equities, payments infrastructure, and multi-asset investing as examples of Binance moving beyond a pure trading venue.
“Most fintech 'super-apps' are just bundles, separate products stitched behind one login. The next generation of financial infrastructure won’t be a bundle; it’ll be a system, where every product compounds the value of the next.”
That shift reflects a wider blurring of lines between exchange, brokerage, payments provider, and investment platform. CoinDesk’s numbers suggest the sector is also getting sturdier: the April 2026 CoinDesk Exchange Benchmark average score reached 58.42, marking a third consecutive cycle of measurable improvement.
For CoinDesk Research, Binance’s ninth anniversary is less about one company than about how centralized exchanges have turned from niche crypto marketplaces into global financial infrastructure.
Enterprise Editor
Marcus follows the money. He covers enterprise software, cloud architecture, and the tectonic shifts in Big Tech strategy. He translates dense earnings calls and complex M&A activity into actionable insights about where the industry is actually heading. If a tech giant makes a silent pivot, Marcus is usually the first to notice.
via TNW
