Against the backdrop of continued macroeconomic volatility and increasing regulatory pressure, Binance has demonstrated unique resilience and adaptability with its prudent and flexible approach.
Written by ChandlerZ, Foresight News
(Book of Changes) There is a saying: Work hard all day long and keep pace with the times.
It means that a gentleman works diligently and unremittingly, constantly strives for self-improvement, and moves with the sun and the moon without ever stopping.
This sentence aptly reflects the spiritual core of Binance in 2024: based on hard-core struggle, combined with user-first, free exploration, collaboration and humility, to fulfill the mission of promoting the development of the global crypto industry. Against the backdrop of global economic fluctuations and increasing regulatory pressure, Binance has demonstrated strong resilience and the ability to respond flexibly, defining the industry benchmark for this year with practical actions.
At the beginning of the year, Bitcoin broke through its historical high with overwhelming force, and the crypto market once again stood in the global financial spotlight. After a brief frenzy, market sentiment entered a period of adjustment, and Bitcoin immediately fell into a wide range of fluctuations for half a year, with investors wavering between optimism and hesitation. However, this adjustment did not erase the potential of the crypto market. It was not until the second half of the year that the "Trump deal" became a key catalyst for reversing the situation. Bitcoin broke through $100,000 with a strong breakthrough, and market confidence was fully boosted, leading the total market value of the entire crypto industry to break through the $3 trillion mark in one fell swoop, once again verifying the growth resilience and global appeal of crypto assets.
The entire industry has also ushered in explosive growth. According to data from The Block, as of December 23, the total annual trading volume of cryptocurrency exchanges reached 18.2 trillion US dollars. As the industry leader, Binance has played a vital role in this historical process, accounting for 39.42% of the global trading volume, with a total annual trading volume of 7.2 trillion US dollars.
Whether it is trading depth, user base, or platform service efficiency, Binance has firmly grasped the key directions of industry development.
The practice of working hard all day long
Deepen user services, focus on both development and improvement
Users have always been the origin and driving force of Binance's development.
In 2024, Binance has taken its service capabilities and user value to a new level by deepening its presence in mature markets and boldly exploring emerging markets. In mature markets, Binance has stabilized user stickiness with precise technical support and efficient operations; in emerging markets, regions represented by Latin America are becoming new engines for Binance's global strategy.
Users in mature markets are more concerned about the stability of trading systems and the efficiency of services. According to Binance CEO Richard Teng, Binance user deposits reached $21.6 billion in 2024, far exceeding its competitors. The average Bitcoin deposit increased from 0.36 BTC to 1.65 BTC, and USDT deposits soared from $19,600 to $230,000.
Source: DefiLlama, January-December 2024
According to DefiLlama data, Binance's user fund deposit amount is nearly 40% higher than the total inflow of US$15.9 billion of the next 10 exchanges.
On the other hand, Latin America has become the emerging market focus of Binance's strategic development. According to the Chainalysis 2023 Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index, Latin America is home to some of the highest-ranked national markets in terms of grassroots cryptocurrency adoption, with Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico ranking 9th, 15th, and 16th in the Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index. With localization at its core, Binance has quickly pushed Latin America from a regional testing ground to the center of its global strategy.
In July, Binance appointed Guilherme Nazar, who had successfully led Binance's Brazilian business, as head of Latin America. He quickly promoted the regional layout and elevated the Latin American market from a testing ground to the core of the global strategy. Immediately afterwards, Binance launched new trading pairs for Mexican Peso and Colombian Peso to provide local users with more convenient trading options, and further supplemented the Argentine Peso and Brazilian Real trading pairs to cover the core needs in the region.
Whether it is deepening its presence in mature markets or exploring emerging markets, Binance's service logic always revolves around "creating greater value for users." This combination of exploration and improvement has formed a dual driving force for Binance's global service system, laying a strong competitive advantage for the platform in a complex market environment.
Trading: Getting down to basics
Whether it is the ups and downs of the spot market or the changes in the derivatives market, the global crypto trading market has shown a complex and changing pattern in 2024. Against this backdrop, Binance has remained at the top of the industry with its strong market strength and flexible strategies, demonstrating strong dominance and growth potential in both the spot and derivatives markets.
According to data from The Block, the spot market experienced dramatic fluctuations in 2024, with trading volumes rising rapidly in the first half of the year and reaching a new peak in the second half. In March, spot trading volumes on global centralized exchanges reached $2.5 trillion, doubling from February and reaching their highest level since November 2021. However, under the influence of low market sentiment, spot trading volumes fell below $1 trillion in October, showing market uncertainty. It was not until November that the "Trump market" led to a rebound in sentiment, with trading volumes climbing to $2.71 trillion, a record high for the year.
In this turbulent market environment, Binance has maintained its leading position with its excellent operational capabilities. Data shows that from February to May, Binance's share of the global spot trading market remained above 40%, with a monthly transaction volume of up to US$1.13 trillion in March. This performance far exceeds other competitors, fully demonstrating Binance's advantages in liquidity, product attractiveness and user stickiness.
The derivatives market will become another important engine of Binance's growth in 2024. Taking Bitcoin futures as an example, the total annual trading volume of this category is as high as 20.61 trillion US dollars, and Binance, with its excellent trading infrastructure and diversified product design, accounts for 7.579 trillion US dollars of trading volume, with an average monthly market share of 32%-42%, and an average annual share of 36.8%.
Even in months with lower trading volumes, such as July, Binance still performed well, processing $620 billion in transactions, accounting for 34.4%. In high-volatility months such as March, Binance's market share exceeded 40%, demonstrating its high adaptability to market fluctuations.
Through the steady growth of the spot market and the multi-dimensional expansion of the derivatives market, Binance further strengthened its core position as a global cryptocurrency exchange in 2024. Whether it is liquidity guarantee during high market volatility or forward-looking layout in product structure, Binance has demonstrated a deep insight into industry changes and the ability to respond quickly.
In the context of increasingly fierce competition in the global crypto market, Binance's continued breakthroughs in liquidity management, market depth and product diversity mark the transformation trend of crypto exchanges from single trading platforms to diversified financial service providers.
Binance’s successful experience also provides the industry with a direction worthy of deep thought: only by achieving a precise balance between technology, operations and market demand can exchanges occupy a leading position in a market environment full of uncertainty for a long time.
An industry mission that keeps pace with the times
Laying a solid foundation for trust
In recent years, the crypto industry has entered a critical transformation period with security and compliance as the core themes. The rapid expansion of the market and the continuous tightening of regulatory requirements have pushed trading platforms to transform from simple trading services to building a trust ecosystem. How to balance user asset security and global compliance has become an important proposition for the development of the industry.
Taking this opportunity, Binance continues to consolidate its industry leadership through comprehensive technical protection and a robust global compliance strategy, injecting a more solid foundation of trust into the entire crypto ecosystem.
User asset security has always been the core of the trading platform's competitiveness. Binance successfully recovered $9.1 million in funds in 2014, prevented more than $129 million in losses overall, blacklisted more than 47,000 malicious addresses, and sent more than 15,000 alerts to users every day, demonstrating its highly mature technical capabilities in the field of financial crime prevention.
All this is thanks to Binance's continuous optimization of its security system. From real-time transaction monitoring to advanced threat detection, Binance has built a comprehensive security protection network, and through in-depth cooperation with international law enforcement agencies, it continues to improve the efficiency of combating financial crimes. The further strengthening of KYC and KYB processes also provides stronger protection for user identity verification and transaction compliance.
In addition, compliance is no longer just a "defensive tool" for exchanges, but a key driving force for market expansion and trust building. As of October 2024, Binance has successfully obtained licenses or registrations in 20 jurisdictions around the world, including major markets such as Argentina, France, Japan, and Dubai. Taking Argentina as an example, Binance was included in the Virtual Asset Service Provider Registration Center of the National Securities Commission (CNV) and officially opened all services, laying a solid foundation for its in-depth expansion in emerging markets such as Latin America. At the same time, Binance has also made key regulatory progress in emerging markets such as India and Kazakhstan. This proactive approach to connecting with local regulators not only reduces compliance risks, but also provides important guarantees for long-term development.
In order to adapt to the changing regulatory environment, Binance has also significantly expanded its compliance and risk team in 2024. By the end of the year, the size of the compliance team is expected to reach 645 people, a 34% increase from 2023. Many members of the new leadership come from traditional finance and regulatory agencies, bringing rich experience and deep expertise. For example, Todd McElduff, Director of Corporate Compliance, and Lana Sinelnikova, Director of Business Compliance and Enterprise-Wide Risk Assessment (EWRA), have deep experience in anti-financial crime and trading product compliance, respectively, providing strong support for Binance to cope with the complex regulatory environment.
Binance has also strengthened its compliance capabilities in different jurisdictions through regionalized team building. In France, Turkey and other places, Binance has recruited a number of experienced compliance and investigation experts. Céline Inial, a former cryptocurrency professional investigator for the French National Gendarmerie, is now responsible for Binance France's special investigations; while Caner Akyürek is a special investigation expert in Turkey with more than 18 years of experience in cybercrime investigations. This regionalized team configuration can effectively enhance its local compliance response capabilities, and more complex multi-regional operations ensure full support.
Future empowerment of ecological incubation
As an important driving force for industry innovation, Binance continues to inject continuous momentum into the Web3 ecosystem through the Binance Labs and Launchpool platforms. From underlying infrastructure to cutting-edge applications, Binance's investment and incubation strategies cover multiple key tracks, opening up broader possibilities for industry development.
Binance Labs' global investment practices have become the core engine of innovation in the blockchain industry. To date, Binance Labs has invested in more than 200 projects in more than 25 countries on six continents. In 2024, Binance Labs will focus on key areas such as decentralized finance, cross-chain interoperability, and the integration of artificial intelligence and blockchain.
In the field of decentralized finance and staking, projects such as Puffer and Babylon provide efficient solutions for PoS networks by improving liquidity mechanisms; in the cross-chain interoperability track, projects such as Rango and Particle Network have greatly improved the connectivity and data flow efficiency of multi-chain networks. In addition, the integration of artificial intelligence and blockchain has also become a key direction. Projects such as Sahara AI and Solayer are exploring how to apply decentralized networks to AI computing power allocation and social ecology, providing practical cases for the intersection of future technologies. This full-chain layout covering infrastructure and application scenarios shows Binance's accurate grasp of industry trends.
Launchpool has strengthened the user participation and project incubation capabilities of the ecosystem from another dimension. Data shows that Binance Launchpool has completed the token release of 100 projects, attracted nearly 6 million independent users to participate, and locked funds exceeded US$1.17 billion. The unique advantage of this platform is that it directly connects user resources with emerging projects, forming efficient capital circulation and user support.
Take projects such as SAGA, ALT, XAI, Manta, and Usual as examples. These tokens have gained significant market attention through the release of Launchpool and have also achieved significant value growth after their issuance.
Binance's core competitiveness in the incubation ecosystem is reflected not only in its wide-ranging investment layout, but also in its deep integration of users, projects and industry development. Behind this series of actions is Binance's deep understanding of the future direction of blockchain. By supporting the development of the entire chain from infrastructure to innovative applications, Binance has not only consolidated its own industry position, but also promoted the comprehensive evolution of the Web3 ecosystem.
Wisdom of adapting to the times
At present, the crypto market is gradually moving from "fringe innovation" to the core stage of the global financial system. At this turning point, Binance is not only a witness to the industry, but also a promoter.
In the rapidly changing industry environment, Binance has always demonstrated the confidence to develop steadily and the wisdom to adapt to the trend. "Work hard all day long and keep pace with the times" is not only a philosophy, but also a true portrayal of Binance in 2024. This year, Binance has found a unique balance between user needs and technological innovation with a pragmatic and open attitude.
