They still rank as the second and third largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world but OKEx and Huobi have seen better years than 2020 going by data from CoinGecko 2020 Yearly Cryptocurrency Report.

The cryptocurrency aggregator presents data showing OKEx saw its dominance fall by about half from the 28% it held at the start of the year to 14% at the end while Huobi’s 7% loss was mild. Binance, on the other hand, maintained its dominance as the exchange with the largest trading volume in 2020. It saw a solid 16% growth over the year to end it as the leading platform having captured 45% share of the market.

The three platforms form a part of centralized exchanges (CEXs) whose trading volume almost quadrupled last year having grown by $374 billion to reach an all-time high of $505 billion by the end of 2020. CoinGecko notes that Binance contributed the major share of this growth with a $189 billion increase in trading volume (+51%) followed by Huobi with $61 billion (+16%) and Coinbase with $40 billion (+11%).

CEXs no match for DEXs in percentage growth

Meanwhile, as the top 10 CEXs saw a +285% growth in their total trading volume in 2020, it was no match with that of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) whose top nine platforms had a phenomenal total trading volume growth in 2020. Led by Uniswap which contributed a trading volume of $16 billion (55% dominance) in December, DEXs recorded an exponential 17,989% growth to reach $29 billion in trading volume in December, up from a modest $163 million in January. 

Nonetheless, while DEX trading volume grew by almost 180 times in 2020,  they still remain behind CEXs. Throughout the year, the top nine DEX-CEX ratio increased steadily from 0.12%in January to a high of 10.74% in September, before dropping to 5.53% in December, CoinGecko data show thus suggesting that DEXs still have a long way to go before flipping the volume of CEXs for which they only make up 5.53% of their trading volume.

In all, trading volumes across the top nine CEXs and DEXs grew by $403 billion to make it $534 billion (+307%) in 2020 and the growth was attributed to CEXs’ drive to account for 93% of the year’s increase.

Huobi wins with Bitcoin perpetual swap

In the 2020 derivatives exchanges section, the report notes that Huobi did well in its Bitcoin Perpetual Swaps volume as the total market across the top nine derivative exchanges grew from $140 billion in January to $744 billion by December – a 531% growth in 2020. Huobi, which just launched its derivatives segment in 2020, grew very fast to clinch the number 2 spot within the year. The exchange’s ability to command 22% of the segment’s market share at the end of 2020 signifies “China’s big appetite for Bitcoin perpetual swap”, CoinGecko notes. 

Huobi’s rise by 27% (+$165 billion) happened as Binance maintained its lead dominating within the 40% range (+$242B) while BitMex faltered dropping from 44% market share to 9% ($67 billion) by the end of 2020. The top nine of the Bitcoin Perpetual Swap market saw a trading volume growth of 531% for their total volume to hit $3.5 trillion when Bitcoin price recorded a new all-time high of around $30,000.