As the role of centralized exchanges (CEX) in the global cryptocurrency market continues to grow, the industry’s focus is increasingly shifting to spot transaction sustainability and reserve health. CoinGecko Spot CEX Report 2026 According to data, in 2025 alone, the 12 largest central exchanges carried out a total transaction volume of approximately 21 trillion dollars in spot markets. This huge volume reveals that liquidity in the market is largely provided through central platforms.
Stablecoin pairs form the backbone of the market
According to the report, stablecoin-based trading pairs continue to underpin the market. USDT and USDC constitute 97.7% of the total 9,870 stablecoin parities on the 12 largest exchanges. These two assets are used as base assets in 66.6% of all trading pairs. On the other hand, although pairs other than stablecoins constitute 31.9% of the total, their share in the transaction volume remains limited.
Even this rate, which reached its peak in November 2024, remained at only 23%.
Weak performance in new token listings draws attention
The performance of newly listed tokens paints a poor picture for investors. According to the report, only about 32% of tokens listed on the 12 largest exchanges are able to show positive price movement immediately after listing. After the first 30 days, this rate drops to 25%, while after 12 months, less than 10% of tokens remain above the initial listing price on most exchanges.
The leading exchange in terms of performance is Upbit with 67%, followed by Binance and OKX with 50%. However, assets listed on Upbit also appear to lose value rapidly over time.
Strong growth in reserves and capital shift
On the reserve side, there is a strong growth. According to CoinGecko data, the total asset value of the 12 largest central exchanges increased from 152.1 billion dollars at the beginning of 2024 to 225.4 billion dollars as of February 2026. This increase indicates approximately 69.6%. In particular, Binance doubled its reserves, reaching $93.4 billion. On the other hand, Coinbase maintains its position as the exchange with the largest BTC reserve with more than 800 thousand Bitcoins. However, it is stated that in the same period, Coinbase’s BTC and ETH reserves experienced an outflow of 20% and 41%, respectively.
Some of these outflows appear to be directed towards smaller and faster-growing stock markets. Platforms such as Bitget and MEXC recorded an increase of 262% and 274.6% in their reserve values, respectively. This indicates a shift in market dynamics from institutional-oriented large platforms to retail-oriented exchanges with higher transaction speeds.
Reserve utilization rates differ between exchanges
The report also draws attention to the reserve utilization rates between exchanges. On more regulated and corporate customer-oriented platforms such as Coinbase, Binance and Kraken, the transaction volume/reserve ratio remains at approximately 0.1. This shows that these exchanges are used mostly for custody services.
On the other hand, on platforms such as Bybit and Bitget, this rate varies between 0.3 and 0.5. On exchanges such as MEXC, HTX and KuCoin, which have smaller reserves, the asset turnover rate is between 1.44 and 2.04, indicating that users are more actively trading on these platforms.
The overall picture shows that centralized exchanges continue to grow, but user behavior and capital flows have changed markedly. While the dominance of stablecoins continues, it is noteworthy that new token listings offer limited returns to investors in the short term and the market is increasingly turning to more dynamic, retail-oriented platforms.
