Binance Reaches Highest Market Share in History despite BUSD Issues

According to CryptoCompare's latest report comparing cryptocurrency exchange activity in February 2023, Binance confirmed its dominant role by achieving record market share in the spot and derivatives markets. Binance's popularity grew despite declining volumes at other major exchange offerings and the US legal issues with the BUSD stablecoin.

Binance Crypto Exchange with Record-Breaking Market Share

CryptoCompare revealed on Wednesday that Binance's spot market share across the most popular crypto trading platforms increased for a fourth month in a row, from 59.4% reported in January to 61.8% last month. In the said period, Binance saw a substantial increase in its trading volumes in spot and derivatives markets. The spot transaction's turnover increased by 13.7%, reaching $540 billion.

"The increase was a surprising divergence from the performance of other exchanges, with Coinbase, Bitfinex, and Bitstamp all seeing a decline in volumes. Similarly, Binance's market share across derivative exchange also grew to 62.9%, its highest-ever recorded monthly market share," CryptoCompare's report commented.

In February, total spot trading volumes increased 10% to $946 billion, which is the second month of consecutive volume increases. Top-Tier spot volumes increased 9.23% to $873 billion, and Lower-Tier spot volumes increased 20.4% to $72.1 billion. Despite the increase, trading volumes remain at historically low levels. By comparison, two years ago, the value of monthly volume came in at $3 trillion.

BUSD Has No Impact on Binance Performance

Two weeks ago The Wall Street Journal reported that the cryptocurrency firm, Paxos is facing a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit over violations of user protection regulations regarding the issuance of Binance's stablecoin dubbed BUSD.

The company decided to halt mint of new BUSD tokens, and the cryptocurrency exchange's Chief Executive, Changpeng 'CZ' Zhao, calmed clients by saying that the funds were safe. However, the information caused a market panic and resulted in a collapse of BUSD's market capitalization.

With new tokens not being minted and holders of existing tokens exchanging them for traditional dollars or other stablecoins, the total market capitalization of the BUSD in February slipped from $15.6 billion to $10.6 billion, which is down 32.6%.

"However, volumes have not reacted in a similar fashion, with BUSD remaining the second most used stablecoin/fiat option across all centralized crypto exchanges," CryptoCompare report added.

BUSD trading volumes in February slid only 2.43% to $176 billion, which is far less than expected after the regulatory pressure that US institutions have begun to exert on cryptocurrency exchanges.

In the meantime, Binance took a renewed step towards obtaining a license to offer its digital asset services in Singapore. However, it wants to focus on corporate, not retail, clients this time. The company plans to leverage its custody division to shift its focus from retail customers to corporate clients. This move comes after the exchange's retail operations in the country were suspended last year under pressure from local regulators