The current crypto winter has triggered a general drop in interest in centralized crypto exchanges (CEX), but some crypto trading platforms have seen a surge in website traffic.
Several major global crypto exchanges, including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, have experienced a considerable increase in web traffic despite the bear market of 2022, based on the website analytics platform Similarweb. Web traffic on FTX increased by 123% YoY, while major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase were down 40% and 46% traffic-wise, respectively.
Based on the data shared with reporters, web traffic on the FTX crypto exchange had increased by up to 123% year-over-year (YoY) by June 2022.
Trading platforms Bybit and WhiteBit have seen a huge growth in interest, with traffic increasing by 244% and 160% in the past year, respectively. The KuCoin crypto exchange has also seen a surge in interest over the past year, with its website’s traffic edging up 50% YoY.
The traffic growth of FTX and Bybit appears to have come against the backdrop of most of CEXs experiencing a major drop in interest in their websites.
Major United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase saw its web traffic plunge 46% YoY, experiencing one of the largest losses among US crypto exchanges. Rival exchanges Bittrex and Kraken have also posted traffic losses, with visits plummeting 54% and 38%, respectively.
The traffic on the global Binance crypto exchange tumbled nearly 40%, based on data from Similarweb. Notably, the major blockchain browser and crypto wallet Blockchain.com also saw its traffic plunge by 30%.
Crypto-friendly stock trading application Robinhood has also dropped traffic-wise, with website visits plunging by 65% YoY.
FTX And Bybit Defy The Current Bearish Trend
Despite a considerable plunge in website visits on most CEXs, the traffic on most cryptocurrency exchanges has still been up over the past three years. As such, web traffic on Kraken, Coinbase, and Binance is up 105%, 36%, and 263% over the period, respectively. Growing traffic exchanges like FTX and Bybit have seen their visits explode by 9,400% and 1,600% over the period, respectively.
On the contrary, some platforms like Blockchain.com and Bittrex.com have seen some traffic drop even over a longer time, with visits dropping 54% and 67% in the past three years, respectively. The discrepancy between traffic movements on various crypto exchanges might be a reason for how various firms position themselves during the tough times on the market.
Based on the senior insights manager at Similarweb, David Carr, some exchanges like FTX have demonstrated more courage than other companies by helping bankrupt platforms and forcing acquisitions. Carr stated:
Buy Crypto Now“More recently, FTX has been in the news as an acquirer or potential acquirer of other companies, such as some of the crypto lending and DeFi companies that were struggling but that FTX and its CEO thought had value.”
Meanwhile, Coinbase may have suffered from “unfortunate headlines” about revealing what would happen to customer funds in case the firm went bankrupt, he stated, adding:
“Not that Coinbase is necessarily on the verge of bankruptcy, but just having the company name and bankruptcy in the same sentence was not a good thing.”
Coinbase is one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the US and has been a publicly traded firm since April 2021. The crypto exchange has been involved in several regulatory conflicts recently, with United States authorities arresting a former Coinbase exchange manager on claims of insider trading in July.
Already under intensive investigation by the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), Coinbase was slapped with two new legal allegations in the past week.
