Centralized exchanges see spot volume boost in October as traders abandon risky derivative markets

Centralized exchanges increased spot volumes in October, further demonstrating the trend of abandoning the risk-heavy derivative markets. Exchanges also saw a general increase in traffic.

Spot volume on centralized exchanges expanded by 36% in October against the previous month. Spot activity grew at a faster pace compared to derivative trading. Derivative trading volume also grew, but only by 27% for the past month.

The centralized activity reflected a mix of factors, including the bullish expectation for “Uptober”. During the October 10-11 crash, Binance and other markets were also extremely active in absorbing both retail and whale volumes.

Previously, Cryptopolitan reported that $BTC had achieved its second-highest month in terms of spot trading. The trend also spread to other assets represented on exchanges.

KuCoin leads spot growth, derivatives among all centralized exchanges

The recent market turbulence redistributed activity on exchanges. Despite the overall slowdown on South Korean markets, KuCoin saw 240% growth in spot volumes in October, after months of slowing down.

Bitfinex expanded its spot trading by 67%, while Gate added 45%. The return to spot exchanges followed the recent abandonment of meme platforms. Upbit, Bitget, and Bybit saw slower spot activity growth, though still with a slight expansion for the past month.

KuCoin derivative growth reached 185% for the month, with 66% expansion on Deribit and 41% on Crypto.com. Binance expanded its derivative volumes by 26%, though starting from a strong basis. The recent volumes do not exclude suspected wash trading or bot-generated volumes.

As a whole, traffic redirected to Gate, Bitfinex, and Upbit, while HTX lost 32% of its visits in the past month. The expansion of activity also reflected the anomalous rush to exchanges during the October 10-11 liquidations.

During that time, some of the markets were inaccessible, while others received complaints of non-transparent liquidations. Centralized exchanges absorbed inflows from both whale wallets and short-term retail sellers. Along with web usage and volumes, exchanges also saw peak stablecoin deposits, as well as increased movements of $BTC from external wallets.

DEX activity peaked in the past month

The ratio of DEX to CEX remained unchanged, while both types of exchanges saw significant growth in October.

Over 19% of all exchange activity is on decentralized markets. In October, DEX achieved over $614B in total activity. Daily trading volumes now reach over $14B, as the trend continued in November.

DEX activity also increased in October, a mix of spot volumes and perpetual DEX trading. | Source: DeFi Llama

Solana was among the leading chains, with over $148B in DEX volume for the past month. The chain surpassed Ethereum’s result, which came in close at $143B.

DEX activity remained high in 2025, mostly driven by retail adoption and better integrations. While meme token trading slowed down, DEX was a key component for swapping altcoins or wrapped $BTC and ETH.

The mix of rising CEX and DEX activity showed the crypto market had high internal activity, driven by a record supply of stablecoins. While external inflows are slowing down, the crypto market now has more tools for shifting liquidity internally, to new types of projects or platforms.