Richard Teng, the co-CEO of Binance, has confirmed on X that the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume has already done 25% of the total OTC volume they achieved in 2025 in just two months of 2026. However, this announcement, which was first documented in the second issue of Binance’s OTC digest that was published on March 20, comes at a time when the crypto spot market is enduring a sustained downturn. The seeming success of Binance’s OTC arm is now raising questions about where and how institutional money is moving. Another question market observers now have to answer is if exchange spot volumes remain a reliable gauge of market health. What is happening in the spot market? According to industry data, the combined trading volumes across centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs) fell to $5.61 trillion in February 2026. Spot trading volume for the same month fell by 3% to $1.5 trillion. The spot market is not also rosy for decentralized exchanges (DEXs) with activity dropping by 15.5% to $287 billion in February, which was its first monthly decline in three months. Binance continues to lead the spot market, although its market share has shrunk to 22%, which is reportedly its lowest since 2020. The market capitalization of the spot market is currently around $2.3 trillion, down by over 2.5% over the past month. The retreat in spot trading volumes saw an increase through the final months of 2025. US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), usually a bellwether of institutional sentiment, registered net outflows of $4.57 billion across November and December, their worst two-month stretch since launch, as Bitcoin’s price dropped 20% over the same period. Where has institutional demand migrated? According to Binance March OTC digest , Bitcoin’s share of OTC volumes rose from 4.91% in January to 45.81% in February, which is nearly a ten-fold increase, while stablecoin and fiat-to-crypto volume went up by more than double, rising from 21.43% to 48.95%. Binance says that the activities that occurred during this period may be a result of bullish repositioning among institutional and high-net-worth clients. Industry-scale participants are moving large sums through back channels, while retail traders sit on the sidelines, and the recent data shared by Binance places it as one of the choice platforms. However, Binance’s OTC volume numbers do not tell the whole story about the market since its dynamics operate quite differently from public market sentiment. The latest growth may be as a result of a change in the routing preferences of institutional traders, instead of net new demand, and this could be a plausible reason why the spot market is where it is now. Get seen where it counts. Advertise in Cryptopolitan Research and reach crypto’s sharpest investors and builders.
