Author: Coingecko
Compiled by: Felix, PANews
Liquidity has become a key metric for crypto assets, affecting not only the ease of trading, but also volatility, slippage, and institutional appeal. As exchanges improve listing standards and market makers provide underlying depth, liquidity signals the maturity of an asset and its readiness for large amounts of capital.
This report explores the trading depth of major centralized exchanges, focusing on narrow price ranges to reveal the scale of capital required to drive market volatility. This report aims to provide ordinary traders with a clearer and more intuitive view of liquidity in today's rapidly developing crypto space.
1. Binance leads in BTC liquidity at all depth levels , with a two-way (buy-sell) depth of approximately $ 8 million within a fluctuation range of +/- $100 , ahead of Bitget and OKX .
During the study period, the median two-way depth of the eight selected exchanges was between $20 million and $25 million within the fluctuation range of BTC market price +/- $100. Liquidity showed a steady upward trend across almost all exchanges, indicating liquidity at all depth levels.
Binance accounts for about 32% of this liquidity, with a depth of about $8 million for both buy and sell orders. Bitget is next with about $4.6 million, and OKX is about $3.7 million. Meanwhile, HTX and Kraken are usually the exchanges with the worst BTC liquidity.
Only Binance has over $1 million in liquidity in both directions within a +/- $10 range. Bybit, Bitget, OKX, HTX, and Crypto.com have liquidity between $100,000 and $500,000, while Kraken and Coinbase have liquidity around $100,000 or less.
2. Bitget surpasses Binance as the ETH liquidity leader in the +/- $15 range , though Binance dominates in a wider price range .
ETH has a median liquidity depth of $15-16 million, with a depth range of around +/- $2 for a 0.1% liquidity interval. Within the same 0.1% range (+/- $100 for BTC), its liquidity is around 60% to 70% of BTC’s.
Within the range of +/- $2, Bitget is the exchange with the most ETH liquidity, followed by Binance and OKX. However, beyond that range, Bitget's ETH liquidity tapers off. Liquidity on eight exchanges is fairly healthy within the range of +/- $2. Six platforms have liquidity of around $1 million or more, and even the smallest platform (HTX) has liquidity of $430,000.
In a wider range of +/- $50 (~2%) from the market price, Binance still offers more liquidity, although its ETH advantage is smaller compared to BTC. Binance’s ETH liquidity share is 25%, while BTC’s liquidity share is 32%.
3. XRP 's liquidity is concentrated in Bitget , Binance and Coinbase , which control about 67% of the share; it lags behind SOL in both liquidity and trading volume .
With a depth range of +/- $0.02 (~1.0%), XRP has approximately $15 million in one-sided liquidity across eight exchanges.
Bitget dominated the depth range of +/- $0.006 (about 0.3%), but then quickly lost ground. In the depth range of +/- $0.02 (about 1.0%), Binance and Coinbase have surpassed in liquidity. These three exchanges account for nearly two-thirds (about 67%) of all liquidity in this range.
Despite XRP’s much higher market cap than SOL, XRP’s cumulative liquidity is lower than SOL’s across eight exchanges within a +/- 2% depth range. This is also reflected in the volume statistics, with SOL’s volume being almost twice that of XRP during the study period.
4. SOL ’s order book holds approximately 60% of ETH liquidity within a depth range of +/- 2% , showing significant depth within a narrow range of +/- $1 .
With a liquidity range of +/- $1 (~0.6%), SOL has ~$20 million in liquidity on each side of eight exchanges, indicating generally good liquidity.
In this range, Bitget accounts for about 32% of the liquidity share, followed by Binance, which accounts for about 20%. Only Kraken has a one-sided depth of less than $1 million in this range, and the one-sided liquidity is only about $480,000.
Outside the +/- $1 range, Binance once again demonstrates its liquidity advantage and continues to rise steadily, further widening the gap with the market price. At the depth level of +/- $2.5 (about 1.6%), Crypto.com's depth has jumped significantly. However, for smaller currencies like SOL, liquidity so far away from the market price is of little significance to ordinary traders. In addition, the liquidity of the other six exchanges gradually decreases after the level of +/- $1.5.
5. DOGE liquidity remains balanced within a range of +/- 2% , closely surrounding the market price.
DOGE’s liquidity profile is very different from other tokens, perhaps because it is a meme token.
Liquidity close to market price is significantly deeper on more exchanges. Bitget, Binance, OKX, and Coinbase have roughly equivalent liquidity within a depth range of +/- $0.001 (~0.5%), with one-sided liquidity ranging between $1 million and $1.7 million.
The relatively steep liquidity curves for Dogecoin on Binance, Coinbase, Bitget, and Crypto.com indicate consistent liquidity at all depth levels. This may indicate the presence of market makers, but it also indicates more speculative limit/stop orders from traders.
At a depth level of +/- 2%, Dogecoin’s cumulative one-sided liquidity across all eight exchanges is approximately $10-12 million, which is roughly half of XRP’s liquidity at the same depth level. This is particularly healthy given the relative size of XRP and Dogecoin’s market caps.
Related reading: "Two minutes of decentralization": the battle between DEX and CEX behind the Hyperliquid incident
