How we rank crypto exchanges

Where the figures come from

Each exchange's 24h trading volume, trading pairs, coins and trust score come from our market data provider, which collects what the exchanges report. So do its country, founding year, description and links.

How we order the list

Our partner exchanges, Bybit, KuCoin and Bitget, come first. After them, centralized exchanges are grouped by trust level, and within a level ordered by 24h trading volume, the largest first. Ties keep a fixed order, so the list does not shuffle between visits.

Decentralized exchanges have their own list, ordered by 24h trading volume alone.

A brand with several markets, such as a spot exchange and its futures market, has one page and one row. Its futures volume shows on its page under its own heading and is not added to its spot volume or rank.

Trust levels

Each centralized exchange has a trust score from 0 to 10 from our market data provider, which rates its liquidity, regulation, cybersecurity, past incidents and proof of reserves. We show it with a level, in the list's order:

Reliable: 7 to 10.
Moderate: 4 to 6.
Unrated: no score.
Weak: 1 to 3. Listed last whatever volume they report: a low score usually means the volume is not real trading.

Decentralized exchanges are not rated: trust scores are shown for centralized exchanges only.

When a volume counts

A volume counts for two days after its last update. After that the exchange shows no volume and adds nothing to any total or rank.
A volume larger than all coins' trading added up is an error, and we store it as none.
An exchange that trades only futures and perpetuals shows its derivatives volume on its page, and it does not count in the spot ranking.
When we have had no market data for an exchange for two days, its page says since when and shows its last figures with their dates. We do not say it has closed: we do not know.

Markets

For centralized exchanges rated 5/10 or more that trade $1M or more a day, we read their 20 most traded pairs once a day: each pair's price, spread and depth, the money it takes to move the price 2% up or down.

On-chain reserves

For the exchanges DefiLlama tracks, we show what the wallet addresses each has published hold, from $1M, read once a day. It shows assets only, not what an exchange owes its users.

Curated profiles

For the exchanges people search most, we check fees, licences, proof of reserves, past incidents and where each is available against the exchange's own pages and public registers. Every fact links its source and shows the day we checked it. AI prepares drafts from those sources and keeps a fact only when its source states it word for word; an editor reviews each fact before it goes on the page.

How often figures update

Volumes, trading pairs, coins and trust scores: every 2 hours.
Each exchange's name, country, founding year, description and links: once a week.
Markets and on-chain reserves: once a day.
Curated facts: checked again every 60 to 90 days.
Our pages show new figures within 2 minutes of an update.

Partner links

Some exchanges pay us a commission when someone signs up through our link. Those links go through coinfolytics.com/go/ and are marked as sponsored for search engines. Partner exchanges are listed first; after them, being a partner changes nothing in the order or the figures.

Corrections

If a figure looks wrong, tell us through our contact page and we will look into it.