The evolution of crypto exchange
strategies 2018-2020

This section looks at the fundamental factors the determine the competitiveness of an exchange:

• Number of countries in which a platform offers services (defines the potential outreach)
• Security (determined not as much by the absence of hacker attacks in general as by the absence of successful thefts affecting customer funds)
• Target audience (customer profiling is crucial for effective marketing)
• Trading volume (points to the depth of liquidity - an essential indicator for experienced and pro traders)

This section uses data gathered on Coinmarketcap, Crunchbase, Craft.io, and Linkedin, as well as on the exchanges' official websites. We found the US and South Korea lead by the largest number of registered exchanges on our list, with 7 and 3, respectively.

Out of the jurisdictions that were very popular back in 2018, only the US retained its position on the list. China and Hong Kong left it altogether. By 2020, four out of the large exchanges registered in Hong Kong changed their jurisdiction, while the trust rating of 3 out of the 4 major China-registered platforms dropped by a factor of 10 or more since 2018, and one of them was even recognized as a scam.

One of the most talked-about crypto events of 2018 was the decision by both Binance and OKEx to move their headquarters to Malta. Also in 2018, Bitfinex announced that it would shift its HQ to Switzerland.

The main reasons for the move in all three cases were increasingly tight regulations, the undefined position of the state towards crypto businesses, and the desire to enter new markets.

Below is a map of exchange HQ distribution, with the size of each circle representing the relative number of exchanges registered in that particular jurisdiction:

The chart below ranks the exchanges by the number of countries whose residents are allowed to trade on each platform. The available countries lists were procured from exchanges' official websites and Fxempire.

Three out of the 32 exchanges are missing: Indodax, AAX, Bitkub. At the time of research, their websites did not feature a list of supported countries.

Poloniex leads in our availability rating with 199 supported countries. On the other end of the spectrum we find Upbeat and Coinone, both registered in South Korea and available only there. Most of the exchanges on our list are available to users from almost all countries, apart from the so-called restricted territories. For instance, Binance is officially unavailable in Belarus and some other states.

It is worth noting that the US often figures on the lists of restricted territories lists. Due to the strict crypto regulation framework in the US, many of the exchanges registered outside of the United States have issues serving American customers (from all or at least some of the states). Bitmart is a good example.

We should also point out that official exchange availability in a country does not mean that all of its products and features will be offered there. Moreover, exchanges can modify the list of restricted jurisdictions at their own discretion according to the changing regulatory and economic circumstances.

The crypto gender gap is closing. According to an investor study by Grayscale, published in September 2019, women constitute almost half (43%) out of the 21 million US residents who are interested in Bitcoin. In the UK, according to a June 2020 study by the Financial Conduct Authority women amount to 21% of the crypto community.

As we see, the distribution of crypto exchange users has remained largely unchanged in the past two years.

We've noticed several interesting geographic correlations:

1. Interest in lotteries is common for users on the exchanges that attract customers from China (Huobi, OKex, Gate), Thailand (Bitkub), and Indonesia (Indodax);
2. On the exchanges where users from South Korea constitute over 90% (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone), the customers tend to be interested in eCommerce and shopping (14-16% of all users);
3. Many Japanese exchange users (Bitflyer and Liquid) are interested in websites from the food & drink category.

This section looks only at cryptocurrency exchanges (i.e. Robinhood and eToro are excluded). The data was procured from Nomics.com.

The table below shows the year-on-year volume change. 'Share' indicates an exchange's share in the total trading volume.

Some of the exchanges failed to increase their trading volume between 2018 and 2019. Only 6 out of 15 exchanges can boast positive average volume change values, and the average YoY volume change for all exchanges was just 1.5%. (The table does not include the outlying 8,000% result shown by Oceanex: this exchange was launched only in late 2018, so its numbers have little statistical value.)

2019-2020 was a much more successful period volume-wise. Аverage YoY growth amounted to 170% (we've excluded Crypto.com, which was launched in late 2019). Only 6 out of the 26 exchanges did not demonstrate an increase in trading volumes. Throughout the period under study, only two exchanges on our list enjoyed stable volume growth: bitFlyer and OKex.

It is interesting to look at the dynamics of each exchange's share in the overall trading volume. It is listed in the table (the calculations are based on the average monthly trading volume):

Below is an interactive diagram with the possibility to sort and filter data:

In 2018, Binance, OKex, and Bitfinex could boast the largest shares in the overall volume. Though by 2020, Bitfinex lost its position to Huobi, partly due to regulatory issues.

OKex, which, as we have mentioned, has consistently ranked as one of the top 3 platforms by volume, has also consistently increased its share: from 17% of the overall volume in 2018 to 21% in 2019 and 22% in 2020. Thus, this exchange not only managed to boost its trading volumes every year, but it also increased its market share.

Another thing to note is the fast increase in the average trading volumes on Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and Poloniex in the last 12 months of the period. Back in 2018-2019, they all experienced volume drops, but in 2019-2020 all these platforms (except for Kraken) saw their volumes rise by over 100%. At the same time, their respective shares in the overall volume fell, apart from Binance.

Safety and security are among the key factors that determine the level of users' trust towards an exchange. In this section of the study, we've used public reports and rankings that have been published by CER and ICOrating in the past three years. Only cryptocurrency exchanges are reviewed in this section: eToro and Robinhood are excluded from the analysis.

Since every exchange safety rating uses its own methodology, we will not compare individual rankings but rather try to understand how safe major exchanges are and which ones lead in terms of security.

The table synthesizes different security rankings for the whole period under review, with the exchanges ranked by their 2020 safety indicator values.

Analyzing each exchange's average 3-year rating, we can identify the industry leaders in terms of security. The top 15 platforms' security rating for the whole period is shown in the chart below.

This is probably because, while the above-mentioned exchanges were attacked, the hacks did not directly concern their clients' funds. When users themselves lost money to criminals and hackers, it was usually due to the users' own carelessness or lack of knowledge about crypto security.

The safest exchanges, according to expert evaluations, are Kraken, Coinbase, and Binance.