Exchange activity stayed flat in May despite volume gains – What happened?
The May 2026 exchange activity data indicate that, following a turbulent April, the general cryptocurrency trading environment stayed comparatively stable. However, there is an interesting caveat in the shift from April to May. The tabular data clearly suggests that the majority of the changes are due to changes in market share between exchanges rather than a notable increase in overall market activity. Spot and derivatives volume saw modest hikes With a mere 0.1% increase in spot trading volume across major exchanges, trading conditions were essentially flat. Of the top performers, OKX saw a noteworthy 20.3% increase in spot volume, followed by Kraken with a 7.0% hike and Bitget with a 4.8% jump. Source: Wu Blockchain The biggest declines were seen by Upbit (-15.8%), Uniswap (-13.3%), and KuCoin (-10.4%). On the other hand, with a 1.1% monthly increase, derivatives trading demonstrated somewhat more vigor. With a 19% increase, Coinbase led derivatives activity gains, followed by Kraken (+9.9%) and Crypto.com (+9.6%). In contrast, BitMart (-37.9%), KuCoin (-18.9%), and Gate (-17.4%) reported the steepest declines. Source: Wu BlockchainWebsite traffic drops However, major exchanges saw a slight decline in website traffic of 0.26%, indicating that user interest stayed mostly constant. Kraken (+4.9%) and Bybit (+4.0%) also saw increases in traffic, but HTX stood