One in Six BTC on Centralized Exchanges Despite FTX Collapse
Nearly 3 million Bitcoin (BTC), value roughly $200 billion and representing 15% of the circulating provide, presently sits on centralized change platforms.
The focus of belongings on buying and selling venues reveals that, regardless of the shock of the FTX collapse in 2022 and years of business messaging round self-custody, about one out of each six BTC in existence stays saved with third-party intermediaries.
Binance Dominates
Data shared by crypto analyst Darkfost shows that centralized change reserves have climbed alongside the growth of buying and selling companies.
Platforms now provide yield era, collateralized by-product merchandise, and lending options, all of which require sustaining important Bitcoin reserves to fulfill consumer liquidity wants. The result’s that roughly 3 million BTC now sits on exchanges, with the distribution closely skewed towards market leaders.
According to the on-chain observer, Binance holds the most important share, controlling round 30% of all Bitcoin saved on centralized platforms. Bitfinex follows with virtually 20% of reserves, whereas Robinhood and South Korea’s Upbit every account for about 8.2%. Kraken, OKX, and Gemini spherical out the highest tier with holdings between 5% and seven%, respectively.
The focus turns into much more pronounced when analyzing absolute figures. Per knowledge from CoinGlass, Coinbase Pro presently holds roughly 792,000 BTC, making it the one largest change holder regardless of its smaller share of the CEX-specific rating. Binance follows with almost 662,000 BTC, whereas Bitfinex holds roughly 430,000 BTC.
“The liquidity depth, quick order execution, and entry to further companies similar to lending and staking contribute to sustaining a major share of Bitcoin’s circulating provide inside these centralized infrastructures,” Darkfost famous in their evaluation.
This remark matches up with buying and selling quantity knowledge exhibiting continued exercise focus, with a CryptoQuant report from earlier in the yr exhibiting that Binance captured over 40% of spot and Bitcoin perpetual volumes throughout main world exchanges in 2025. The platform additionally processed $25.4 trillion in Bitcoin perpetual futures alone.
Market Structure Shifts Despite Persistent Exchange Holdings
The $200 billion held on exchanges represents a fancy market dynamic as a result of, whereas complete change reserves are substantial, the previous month has seen blended actions throughout platforms.
CoinGlass knowledge exhibits general change balances elevated by some 16,990 BTC over the previous 30 days, however particular person platform tendencies diverged considerably. For instance, Binance added greater than 22,000 BTC throughout that interval, whereas OKX and Bithumb recorded outflows exceeding 2,700 BTC and three,600 BTC, respectively. Gemini noticed the most important 30-day decline, with balances dropping by virtually 13,900 BTC.
These actions are taking place in opposition to a backdrop of evolving change enterprise fashions and regulatory positioning. Kraken confidentially filed for an IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November 2025, following an $800 million funding spherical that valued the change at $20 billion.
Meanwhile, Robinhood, which holds roughly 8.2% of change BTC reserves, just lately launched the general public testnet for Robinhood Chain in February 2026, an Ethereum Layer 2 community constructed on Arbitrum designed to speed up growth of tokenized belongings.
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