Crypto exchange Bullish surpasses Coinbase to become the third-largest platform by spot trading volume.

The exchange catering to institutional clients experienced a 62% increase in spot trading, reaching $76 billion in February, thereby surpassing Coinbase’s market share.

Key points:

• Bullish emerged as the third-largest centralized exchange by spot trading volume in February, achieving a 5.06% market share that exceeded Coinbase’s.
• The increase in Bullish’s trading volume occurred during a period when overall activity on centralized exchanges declined, with total spot and derivatives volumes decreasing by 2.41% in February to $5.61 trillion due to muted volatility in the cryptocurrency market for part of the month.
• Binance continued to hold the position of the largest exchange, claiming roughly 22% of the spot market share, although its dominance has reached the lowest point since 2020 as trading volume has been distributed among more competing platforms.

Crypto platform Bullish (BLSH), which runs an exchange exclusively for institutional clients, entered the top three centralized crypto exchanges by spot trading volume for the first time in February, surpassing Coinbase (COIN) as trading activity across the sector diminished, according to CoinDesk Data’s February Exchange Review.

Spot trading volumes on Bullish, the parent company of CoinDesk, increased by 62.6% from the previous month to $76 billion, marking the exchange’s highest monthly figure since October 2025. This spike raised Bullish’s market share to 5.06%, a gain of 2.04 percentage points, solidifying its position as the third-largest centralized exchange by spot trading volume.

This rise allowed Bullish, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange last year, to surpass Coinbase (COIN), which maintained a 4.59% share of the spot market during the month.

(CCData)

This achievement occurs despite an overall decline in activity on centralized exchanges. The combined spot and derivatives trading volumes dropped by 2.41% in February to $5.61 trillion, the lowest level noted since October 2024, according to the report.

This decrease aligns with reduced volatility in key cryptocurrencies. Although there was significant volatility in the initial and final weeks of February, bitcoin BTC$70,547.24 remained largely within a narrow range between $60,000 and $70,000 for most of the month, which limited speculative trading that typically leads to higher volumes.

Spot trading constituted $1.50 trillion of the total, marking a 3.01% decrease from January. Derivatives trading also experienced a decline of 2.41%, totaling $4.11 trillion, yet it remained the predominant type of trading, making up 73.2% of all transactions on centralized exchanges, as noted in the report.

While Binance continues to be the leading exchange by a significant margin, reporting $331 billion in spot trading volume for February, which accounts for approximately 22% of market share, its dominance has dropped to its lowest monthly level since October 2020, indicating a trend towards a more distributed trading activity among various platforms.

Bullish’s advancement in the rankings underscores the evolving landscape among centralized exchanges amid increasing competition. Exchanges are increasingly vying for liquidity, trading incentives, and innovative product offerings to draw in traders during periods of reduced market activity. Some have formed partnerships with major U.S. stock exchanges to provide tokenized securities or have introduced prediction market trading.