Crypto platform Bullish (BLSH), which operates a purely institutional crypto exchange business, climbed into the top three centralized crypto exchanges by spot trading volume for the first time in February, surpassing Coinbase (COIN) as industry-wide trading activity slowed, according to CoinDesk Data’s February exchange review.
Spot trading volumes on Bullish, which is CoinDesk’s parent company, rose 62.6% month over month to $76 billion, the exchange’s highest monthly total since October 2025. The increase lifted Bullish’s market share to 5.06%, an increase of 2.04 percentage points, making it the third-largest centralized exchange by spot trading volume.
The rise pushed Bullish, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange last year, ahead of Coinbase (COIN), which had a 4.59% share of the spot market during the month.
The milestone comes even as overall activity on centralized exchanges declined. Combined spot and derivatives trading volumes fell 2.41% in February to $5.61 trillion, the lowest level recorded since October 2024, the report said.
The slowdown coincided with moderate volatility in major cryptocurrencies. Despite the great volatility in the first and last week of February, bitcoin It spent much of the month trading in a narrow range between $60,000 and $70,000, limiting speculative activity that often leads to higher trading volumes.
Spot trading accounted for $1.50 trillion of that total, down 3.01% from January. Derivatives trading fell 2.41% to $4.11 trillion, but remained the dominant force, accounting for 73.2% of all trading on centralized exchanges, according to the report.
While Binance remained the dominant exchange by a wide margin, recording $331 billion in spot trading volume during February, representing around 22% market share, its dominance declined to its lowest monthly level since October 2020, suggesting that trading activity is becoming more spread out among competing platforms.
Bullish’s rise through the rankings highlights the changing dynamics among centralized exchanges amid increasingly intense competition. Exchanges are increasingly competing for liquidity, trading incentives and offering new products to attract traders during periods of slower market activity. Some have partnered with major US stock exchanges to offer tokenized securities or launched prediction market operations.
