Cryptoverse: Hungry exchanges fight for slice of American pie

investing.com:

By Hannah Lang

(Reuters) — May the best exchange win?

Crypto platforms are vying for dominance in the United States, the world's biggest market, following a regulatory crackdown that's shaken the sector.

Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) and Binance.US, two of the largest crypto exchanges by market share among those operating in America, have lost ground this year. The former has fallen to about 51% as of June 18 from a high of 62% in January, while the latter has sunk to around 1.5% from 22% in March, according to data from Kaiko.

Both Binance and Coinbase have been sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for alleged securities laws violations, though deny wrongdoing. Their regulatory woes and others' have conspired with the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX last year to conjure crypto chaos.

Rivals scent blood.

Kraken, Bitstamp and LMAX Digital — an institutional crypto exchange — have seen their market shares increase since the start of this year by as much as 5.66%, according to the Kaiko data, which represents the global market share of exchanges that operate in the United States.

Kraken has leapt to about 29%, leaving Binance.US in its wake.

«Dominance in the U.S. market is really important,» said Ravi Doshi, co-head of trading at Genesis Trading. «The majority of the trading volume happens during U.S. trading hours because the most amount of capital is here and the most amount of interest from institutions is coming from the U.S.»

Guy Hirsch, global managing director at Kraken, said the company had «dedicated significant time and resources to enhance the quality of its platform».

Bobby Zagotta, CEO of Bitstamp USA, said its recent growth was driven by a «flight to quality» in the marketplace.