In March, combined spot and derivatives trading volumes on centralized exchanges fell 6.53% to $5.26T, marking the lowest level of activity since October 2024. Spot volumes fell 15.7% to $1.27T, recording the lowest monthly figures since September 2024. Derivatives volumes declined 3.20% to $3.99T, but still accounted for a larger share of centralized exchange activity, rising to 76.5%, their highest dominance since September 2023.
The slowdown in trading activity coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, as financial markets shifted focus toward commodities over digital assets. Notably, gold (XAU) ranked as the fifth-largest asset by futures volume in March with $55.6B traded, highlighting growing demand for commodity exposure on crypto exchanges amid escalating geopolitical tensions. BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP and XAU were the five most-traded derivatives assets in March.
In spot markets, BTC and ETH led centralized exchanges with $522B and $258B in volume respectively. SOL narrowly edged out XRP for third, $51.8B to $51.5B, while DOGE rounded out the top five at $15.8B.
Gate overtook Bybit to become the third-largest centralized derivatives venue for the first time, with its market share rising to 12.0% despite a 4.60% decline in trading volume. Binance and OKX retained the top two spots, accounting for 35.4% and 17.9% of total centralized derivatives volume respectively.
Binance and Bybit maintained the top two positions in terms of open interest - at 23.1% and 10.7% respectively, while institutional exchanges accounted for 14.2% of the total. Gate ranked third among retail CEXs by open interest, reaching $8.68B and representing 9.76% of the market.
DEX spot volumes fell 23.9% to $212B in March, the lowest monthly figure since October 2024, with DEX market share against CEXs dropping to 14.3%. On the derivatives side, DEX volumes declined 7.07% to $700B, the lowest since July 2025, extending a losing streak to four consecutive months of market share erosion, with on-chain perpetuals' share falling to 14.9%, its lowest since September 2025.
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