2024 Coinglass Derivatives Exchange Report: Reshaping of the Track Pattern and Analysis of Key Differences

The cryptocurrency market witnessed a recovery and structural transformation in 2024, with its total market capitalization exceeding $3.8 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 110%. During the year, the price of BTC broke through the $100,000 mark, hitting a historical high. This was not only an important milestone in the development of the cryptocurrency market but also a year when the derivatives market witnessed a comprehensive rise.
These "milestone" figures stemmed from the superposition of multiple favorable factors in the industry. In January of this year, the SEC approved the listing of 11 Bitcoin spot ETFs, including products from asset management giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity Investments. In July of the same year, the approval of Ethereum spot ETFs further enriched investors' choices and injected more liquidity into the market. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, offered public support at the "Bitcoin 2024 Conference", which further boosted market confidence. He referred to Bitcoin as the "gold of the digital age" and reaffirmed his long-term belief in DeFi. This stance further consolidated the position of crypto assets as a mainstream investment category.
Driven by macro-level favorable factors, the derivatives market became another important growth engine for the cryptocurrency industry in 2024. According to Coinglass data statistics, the trading volume of the global cryptocurrency derivatives market soared significantly in 2024, and the open interest reached a historical high, indicating investors' high interest in leveraged products and market price fluctuations. Major exchanges demonstrated their unique competitiveness in both the derivatives and spot markets. Among them:
Binance led the market with a daily average mainstream contract trading volume of $40 billion, consolidating its industry-leading position with its strong liquidity and extensive user base.
OKX firmly held the second place with a daily average mainstream contract trading volume of $19 billion and laid a solid foundation for the sustainable development of the platform through its leading asset reserve proof mechanism.
Bybit ranked second in the global exchange spot market with a daily average mainstream spot trading volume of $2.3 billion and witnessed an inflow of over $8 billion in 2024.
Crypto.com found a breakthrough in specific areas and won market share through innovative features and user experience.
Deribit dominated the options track, accounting for 82.2% of the Bitcoin options market share and establishing its leading position in the professional derivatives field.
Hyperliqud, as a leading on-chain exchange, promoted the industry’s development towards transparency and efficiency with decentralized perpetual contracts and margin trading.
These platforms not only drove the growth of trading volume but also provided valuable observation samples for the global cryptocurrency market. As an industry-leading contract data analysis platform, Coinglass will analyze in-depth how major exchanges gained an edge in the global landscape from aspects such as the derivatives market, spot trading volume, asset transparency, and trading fees, and explore the core driving forces of the cryptocurrency market in 2024, providing forward-looking insights and considerations for investors and the industry.
I. Derivatives Market

In 2024, the cryptocurrency derivatives market experienced a historic growth and became an important part of the cryptocurrency market. The global cryptocurrency derivatives market set new records, with a daily average trading volume exceeding $100 billion and a monthly trading volume breaking through $3 trillion, far surpassing the trading volume of the spot market. This significant growth reflected an increased demand for leveraged products among investors, especially during periods of high market volatility. As the market matured and the regulatory framework improved, more and more institutional investors, such as hedge funds and asset management companies, flocked to the derivatives market, driving its further development. In addition, the participation of retail investors was also growing rapidly. Easy-to-use trading platforms lowered the entry barrier, and the high leverage characteristics of derivatives attracted a large number of retail users seeking short-term gains.
By the end of 2024, the total open interest of BTC contracts in the global cryptocurrency derivatives market exceeded $60 billion, indicating the continuous demand for risk management tools and leveraged products in the market. The impact of derivatives trading on the market cannot be ignored. Firstly, it significantly improved market liquidity. Traders could leverage a larger market scale with less capital, reducing the impact of large transactions on spot prices and making the market operate more efficiently. Secondly, the derivatives market played an important role in price discovery, especially during periods of market fluctuations. The prices of futures and perpetual contracts often guided the price trends of the spot market. In addition, derivatives provided institutional investors with hedging tools, reducing the volatility of their portfolios and attracting more long-term capital inflows. Ultimately, the trading behavior in the derivatives market promoted the efficiency of market pricing, reduced the volatility of cryptocurrency assets, and enhanced the overall stability of the market, laying the foundation for the maturity and healthy development of the cryptocurrency market.
In 2024, the trading volume of the cryptocurrency derivatives market accounted for a significant share in the total trading volume, and the market distribution among major exchanges also showed obvious differences. According to Coinglass's contract trading volume data, Binance continued to maintain its market lead. The total trading volume of the top ten contract currencies in 2024 reached $14,685.5 billion, far exceeding other competitors and demonstrating its unrivaled advantage in the field of cryptocurrency derivatives trading. OKX ranked second globally with a trading volume of $7,064.8 billion, also showing its core position in the global derivatives market. OKX's users were mainly concentrated on the top five currencies such as BTC, ETH, SOL, DOGE, and PEPE, further consolidating its market dominance in these high-demand currencies.
Although Bitget and Bybit ranked third and fourth respectively and performed quite well, there was still a significant gap between their trading volumes and those of Binance and OKX, indicating that the global market competition pattern remained relatively concentrated.
The competitive situation among different exchanges showed relatively obvious differences. Platforms such as OKX and Binance consolidated their leading positions in the global market by optimizing trading products and improving user experience, while Bitget and Bybit demonstrated unique competitiveness in specific areas or currencies.
In 2024, the price of BTC broke through the $100,000 mark, driving significant growth in the BTC options market. As the price of Bitcoin climbed, the trading activity of options increased substantially, and the total open interest reached $41.127 billion, further consolidating its core position in the global market.

As of December 19, 2024, the total open interest of the BTC options market was $41.127 billion, and that of ETH was $100.72 billion. The size of the BTC market was four times that of ETH, reflecting BTC's position as the core liquid asset in the cryptocurrency market.
In the competitive landscape of the BTC options market, Deribit continued to dominate, firmly holding 82.2% of the global market share. Meanwhile, OKX performed outstandingly with a position size of $2.927 billion, ranking third and accounting for 7.1% of the global market share. This performance highlighted OKX's rapid rise in the options market and its potential for continuous growth.
In 2024, the Ethereum (ETH) options market continued to grow, with the total open interest reaching $100.72 billion. With the further development of the smart contract ecosystem and the promotion of staking activities, the ETH options market showed a steady growth trend.
The price of ETH broke through the $4,000 high in 2024, driving an expansion of market demand. In the market pattern, Deribit continued to dominate, while other platforms gradually expanded their market shares with their respective market strategies. Data showed that among the top-ranked platforms, some exchanges had a market share exceeding 10%, indicating the active layout of competitors in this field.
II. Spot Trading Volume
In 2024, the cryptocurrency spot trading market showed a centralization trend, and the gap in market shares among major exchanges further widened. In 2024, Binance firmly held the first place with a mainstream spot trading volume exceeding $2.15 trillion, occupying an absolute dominant position in the market. Bybit and Crypto.com followed closely, with mainstream spot trading volumes of $858 billion and $810 billion respectively, forming the second echelon, indicating their certain competitive advantages in the medium-sized market.
Coinbase and OKX ranked among the top five with trading volumes of $635 billion and $606 billion respectively, consolidating their stable positions in the market. In contrast, Kraken's trading volume was $133 billion, Bitstamp's was $67 billion, and Bitfinex's was $58 billion. The market scales of these exchanges were relatively small, and their user groups were more concentrated in specific regions or among professional investors. Gemini's trading volume was only $18 billion, ranking relatively low among major exchanges, reflecting its market positioning of focusing more on serving institutional clients and long-term investors.
III. Asset Position Transparency
Transparency is gradually becoming the key for centralized exchanges to win users' trust. The collapse of FTX in 2022 exposed deep-seated problems in the industry regarding asset transparency and risk management, directly leading to a market trust crisis. Users had difficulty verifying the real financial situation of exchanges, and internal governance deficiencies exacerbated the risk of asset loss. As a result, the industry's credibility was severely hit, and market uncertainty increased significantly, posing a severe challenge to the long-term development of the cryptocurrency industry.
After the FTX incident, the market's demand for transparency rose rapidly, and CEXs began to rebuild trust through asset disclosure and technological upgrades. Top exchanges, including OKX, took the lead in launching the Proof of Reserves (PoR) and adopted advanced encryption technologies such as zk-STARK, allowing users to independently verify asset conditions and balance transparency and privacy protection. This trend not only reshaped the industry's trust foundation but also established new development standards for CEXs and laid an important cornerstone for the future of the cryptocurrency market.
In addition, the transparency of exchanges is inseparable from a clear and quantifiable indicator system. According to DefiLlama's data, "Assets" and "Clean Assets" have become the keys to evaluating the health of exchanges:

The first is Assets, which includes all the assets held by the exchange, excluding IOU assets that have already been counted on other chains. For example, the BTC anchored on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has been recorded in the Bitcoin chain and will not be double-counted.
The second is Clean Assets, which reflects the total locked volume (TVL) of the exchange, excluding the exchange's self-issued assets (such as platform coins), and more truly measures the asset quality and liquidity of the exchange.
Through these two indicators, users can more clearly evaluate the robustness and transparency of the platform.
Binance ranked first in the industry with total assets of $165.29 billion. Facing increasingly severe regulatory pressure, Binance's transparency and asset quality issues have attracted widespread attention in the market.
In 2024, OKX's capital inflow and transparency performance became important data points in the cryptocurrency industry. According to DefiLlama data, OKX ranked among the top in the industry with a net inflow of $4.602 billion, and its total assets reached $28.86 billion, of which $28.72 billion were clean assets, with a clean asset ratio as high as 99.5%. The net inflow data indicated that OKX was in a leading position among similar exchanges, showing a significant increase in user trading activity and capital flow. The clean asset ratio indicated that the vast majority of the assets held by the platform were unpledged or unborrowed assets, reflecting high capital safety and liquidity.
Bybit had a net capital inflow of $8 billion, growing rapidly. Crypto.com and Bitfinex faced net outflows of $220 million and $2.3 billion respectively, reflecting a further decline in their market shares.
IV. Trading Fee Indicators
(1) Spot Trading Fees
With the intensification of competition in the spot trading market, major exchanges attracted users by optimizing fees, adjusting user thresholds, and implementing differentiated strategies, and the market showed an obvious stratification trend.
At the level of ordinary users, the fee strategies of major exchanges were consistent, all adopting a Maker fee of 0.1% and a Taker fee of 0.1%.
At the VIP user level, the competition was even fiercer. OKX provided a highly competitive fee structure for the highest-level VIP users: a Maker fee of -0.01% and a Taker fee of 0.02%. This was better than the Maker fee of 0.011% and Taker fee of 0.023% offered by Binance for top users. Bybit's fee structure in this area was relatively conservative, with a Taker fee of 0.015% and a Maker fee of 0.005%. Although its overall fees were higher than those of the other two exchanges, it still had certain market competitiveness.
From the perspective of the trading volume thresholds required to reach these preferential fees, OKX had the highest requirement, demanding that the trading volume within 30 days reach over $5 billion. Binance's requirement was over $4 billion, while Bybit's threshold was the lowest, only requiring $1 billion. This differentiated setting of thresholds reflected the different strategies and market positioning of each exchange in the battle for high-end users.
(2) Contract Trading Fees
With the rapid development of the derivatives market, contract trading has become the core battlefield for competition among major exchanges. Each platform competed in different user levels through refined fee structures and differentiated threshold strategies.
At the level of ordinary users, the market-leading exchanges showed significant consistency in the basic fee level. Binance and OKX adopted a unified fee structure (Maker fee 0.0200%, Taker fee 0.0500%), reflecting the price consensus in the mature market. Bybit maintained the same Maker fee (0.0200%) while slightly adjusting the Taker fee to 0.0550%, reflecting its strategy in the revenue structure.

At the VIP user level, the competition was more intense and the differences were more obvious. OKX stood out with the most aggressive fee strategy, providing top VIP users with a negative Maker fee (-0.0050%) and a highly competitive Taker fee (0.0150%). Binance adopted a relatively conservative strategy, providing VIP users with a fee combination of Maker 0.0000% and Taker 0.0170%, reflecting its position as a market leader. Bybit's fee strategy (Maker 0.0000%, Taker 0.0180%) was close to that of Binance.
From the perspective of access thresholds, the three exchanges showed an obvious gradient. Binance maintained the highest standard, requiring a 30-day trading volume of $25 billion, highlighting its position as a market leader. OKX followed closely, setting a threshold of $20 billion, echoing its aggressive fee strategy. Bybit adopted a relatively user-friendly threshold of $5 billion, showing its strategic intention to expand its market share.
This differentiated setting of thresholds not only reflected the market positions of each platform but also embodied their different concepts in user screening and risk control. These fee designs reflected the strategies adopted by each platform when attracting different user groups. With the intensification of market competition, the differences in fees among platforms will become an important factor influencing users' choices.
(3) Contract Funding Fees
The funding fee, as the core mechanism of perpetual contracts, maintains the balance between the contract price and the spot price by regularly exchanging fees between the long and short sides. A positive funding fee means that the long side pays the short side, and vice versa. This indicator not only reflects market sentiment but is also an important reference for measuring the market's leverage preference. (Note: This analysis is based on 8-hour fee data, and the annualized calculation method is: 8-hour fee × 3 × 365. For example, an 8-hour fee of 0.01% is approximately equivalent to an annualized rate of 10.95%.)
The cryptocurrency market maintained an optimistic sentiment throughout 2024, as can be seen from the funding fee data. Binance maintained a positive funding fee for 322 days throughout the year, followed closely by Bybit with 320 days, and OKX had 291 days (based on the daily 0:00 BTC-USDT Coinglass contract data statistics). This continuous positive funding fee indicated that the bullish sentiment dominated the market for most of 2024.
In 2024, the funding fees of major exchanges fluctuated continuously with the changes in the market situation.
First Quarter: The Carnival Period Driven by ETFs
At the beginning of 2024, the market sentiment was high. In early January, the 8-hour funding fees of the three major exchanges once reached around 0.07%, with an annualized rate of approximately 76.65%, reflecting extremely optimistic market expectations. This was highly consistent with the significant event of the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs. Among them, OKX hit a single-day high of approximately 0.078% in early March, with an annualized rate of approximately 85.41%.
Second Quarter to Third Quarter: The Rational Regression Period
From April to August, the market entered a calm period. The funding fees fluctuated at a low level, mostly remaining below 0.01% (annualized 10.95% or less), and even turned negative in some periods. This indicated that the market speculation sentiment cooled down and became more rational.
Fourth Quarter: The Policy Expectation Promotion Period
In November, another peak came, and the funding fees of the three major exchanges generally rose to the range of 0.04% - 0.07% (annualized 43.8% - 76.65%), and the market once again showed a strong bullish sentiment. This might be related to the policy expectations at the end of the year and the entry of institutional funds.

Leading exchanges further widened their advantages in market competition through differentiated fee strategies. This not only effectively improved the efficiency of users' capital utilization but also provided more targeted service options. This trend not only reflected the immediate changes in market supply and demand but also, to some extent, reflected the continuous exploration and refined operation capabilities of trading platforms in liquidity management, risk control, and user experience optimization.
Binance: As the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance's funding fee trend showed remarkable stability. The fluctuation range of the annual fee was relatively narrow, and the frequency of extreme values was the lowest