New Report Finds Where All the Money Went in Crypto’s Brutal Q1
The crypto market traded $20.57 trillion in Q1 2026, however declining volumes and concentrated liquidity advised a narrative of cautious restoration, not euphoria.
A brand new quarterly analysis report from CoinGlass breaks down how capital, buying and selling exercise, and market depth shifted amongst exchanges throughout the first three months of the yr. The findings paint an image of a market nonetheless digesting the aftershocks of late 2025.
A Market Still Healing From This fall’s Crash
Q1 2026 unfolded in opposition to a troublesome backdrop. The October 2025 tariff shock triggered $19 billion in liquidations inside 24 hours, the largest single-day deleveraging occasion in crypto historical past.
Bitcoin (BTC) declined roughly 35% from its all-time high above $126,000, and open curiosity throughout exchanges dropped greater than 40%.
By January, indicators of stabilization had appeared. Total market quantity for the quarter reached roughly $20.57 trillion, break up between $1.94 trillion in spot and $18.63 trillion in derivatives.
However, every successive month noticed decrease totals. January posted the highest exercise, and March fell to the quarterly low.
The derivatives-to-spot ratio held at roughly 9.6x all through the quarter, barely above the 2025 full-year common.
That ratio suggests merchants most well-liked hedging and short-term positioning by means of futures reasonably than making directional spot bets.
Binance’s Lead Extends Across Every Metric
The CoinGlass report measured exchanges throughout 4 dimensions, together with buying and selling quantity, open curiosity (OI), order e book depth, and consumer asset reserves. Binance ranked first in all of them.
In derivatives, Binance posted roughly $4.90 trillion in cumulative quantity, a 34.9% share amongst the prime 10 exchanges.
That determine exceeded the mixed totals of OKX ($2.19 trillion) and Bybit ($1.49 trillion). In open curiosity, Binance averaged $23.9 billion each day, roughly 2.2 occasions second-ranked Bybit.
Liquidity depth advised an identical story. In BTC futures, Binance’s common two-sided depth inside 1% of the mid-price was roughly $284 million.
OKX adopted at $160 million and Bybit at $76.55 million. The sample repeated throughout BTC spot, ETH futures, and ETH spot markets. No single competitor matched Binance throughout all 4 sub-markets concurrently.
The starkest hole appeared in consumer asset reserves. Binance held roughly $152.9 billion in custodial belongings, accounting for 73.5% amongst the prime 10 exchanges. OKX was a distant second at $15.9 billion. Gate, Bitget, and Bybit all fell inside the $5 to $7 billion vary.
That focus far exceeds Binance’s share in buying and selling quantity or open curiosity. The CoinGlass report famous that asset retention displays model belief, product ecosystem breadth, and on/off-ramp comfort, making it a stronger indicator of long-term aggressive place.
Hyperliquid Enters the Mainstream Conversation
One of the quarter’s most notable developments was the rise of Hyperliquid (HYPE), a decentralized derivatives protocol that posted roughly $492.7 billion in Q1 buying and selling quantity.
That positioned it inside the prime ten.
Its common each day open curiosity of roughly $6.0 billion, with a peak of $9.7 billion, drew near that of centralized rivals like Bitget.
The development validated what CoinGlass’s 2025 annual report had predicted, that decentralized derivatives had been transitioning from proof-of-concept to precise market share competitors.
JPMorgan flagged Hyperliquid in a March report, noting that demand for round-the-clock entry to conventional belongings was driving decentralized alternate development and taking share from mid-tier centralized platforms.
Grayscale additionally filed an S-1 for a HYPE ETF in March, in search of a Nasdaq itemizing.
For now, Hyperliquid’s scale stays considerably beneath the main centralized exchanges.
However, its entry into the aggressive enviornment provides stress to second-tier platforms competing for derivatives market share.
What Comes Next
The CoinGlass report recognized a number of variables to observe heading into Q2. These embrace:
- The Federal Reserve’s financial coverage path,
- Changes in BTC spot ETF fund flows, and
- The progress of regulatory framework implementation throughout main jurisdictions.
Q1 was not a few return to all-time highs. It was about restoration, focus, and a shifting market construction that’s drawing clearer traces between the platforms that appeal to capital and people who threat falling behind.
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