Q3 Data Revealed: How Did a Leading Exchange Maintain One Third of the Market Share?

I recently reviewed the industry data for Q3 2025 and discovered some pretty interesting phenomena.

The total market cap of the crypto market has now surpassed $4 trillion—specifically $4.02 trillion, up 16.2% from Q2 and a staggering 72.5% year-over-year. What does this growth rate suggest? The bull market still has underlying strength.

Exchange Landscape: Dominance Consolidates

Speaking of trading volume, the TOP 10 exchanges contributed $28.7 trillion in Q3, a quarter-over-quarter increase of nearly 33%. Spot trading accounted for $4.9 trillion, derivatives $23.7 trillion—both on the rise.

But what’s most eye-catching is one leading platform—it alone handled $9.93 trillion in trading volume, making up 34.59% of the entire market. What does this mean? Out of every three trades, one is completed on this platform.

The others aren’t weak, either: Exchange A took 12.60%, Platform B accounted for 11.58%, Exchanges C and D were at 11.45% and 11.36%, respectively. It looks somewhat dispersed, but the dominance of the leading platform is unmistakable.

Looking closer, in the spot market, this top platform holds a 41.26% share, up 3.27% from Q2; in the derivatives market, it has 33.20%, up 1%. Not only is its trading volume huge, but it also recorded a net inflow of $14.8 billion in Q3—a record high.

On-chain Is the Real Battlefield

Interestingly, while market cap jumped 16% and trading volume surged 32%, the market shares of different platforms didn’t change significantly. What does this illustrate? The zero-sum game is reaching its limit; everyone is seeking new avenues for growth.

And this “new” opportunity lies on-chain.

The leading platform already saw this coming. Its public blockchain saw active addresses soar to 52.5 million in September, a staggering 57% increase versus the previous quarter, surpassing two other major public chains (which had 45.8 million and 8.9 million, respectively). The number of transactions rose from 892 million in Q2 to 1.22 billion, with DEX trading volume hitting $225 billion—the highest since Q4 2021.

Fee revenue is also impressive: Q3 generated $357.3 million. In September alone, revenue reached $22 million, a new high since March.

The key is the ecosystem: The number of protocols on this chain reached 1,033, which is 2.7 times that of a well-known public chain; TVL (Total Value Locked) hit $8.729 billion, up 15.02% month-over-month—the fastest growth among the TOP 10 public chains by TVL.

Ambition Behind Fee Reductions

On September 24, this chain reduced fees again: minimum gas dropped from 0.1 Gwei to 0.05 Gwei, and block generation time was cut from 750 ms to 450 ms. This is the third major fee reduction in 18 months.

Looking back, in April 2024, fees dropped from 3 Gwei to 1 Gwei, and again in May 2025 to 0.1 Gwei—a cumulative drop of 75%. The last fee cut had an immediate impact: median transaction fees fell 75% (from $0.04 to $0.01), and single-day transaction counts surged 140%, breaking through 12 million.

The goal of reducing fees is clear: push single transaction costs down to $0.001, fully establishing itself as the foundational infrastructure for financial systems.

The on-chain ecosystem is also rapidly improving. In addition to established DEXs and lending platforms, a derivatives DEX launched in September, with single-day revenue peaking at $7.2 million, even surpassing the $2.79 million of a well-known perpetual contract platform. This single protocol drove the chain’s perpetual contract trading volume up by 55% in Q3, reaching $36 billion.

Some say this leading platform has used on-chain products to create two “mini versions” of itself—one focusing on spot, the other on derivatives. If anyone can disrupt itself, it’s itself.

Beyond Memes, Institutions Are the Real Deal

The meme coin frenzy in early October was indeed hot, with the “XX Life” series going viral and temporarily spiking chain activity. But this kind of heat is more of a traffic party; the real incremental growth comes from institutions.

This year, multiple publicly listed companies from traditional industries announced they would add the platform’s token to their balance sheets. In June, a well-established Web3 institution announced a $1 billion fundraising plan to form a listed company dedicated to holding and investing in the token ecosystem. In October, Bloomberg reported that a Hong Kong investment bank plans to raise $600 million to launch a related treasury in the US—if completed, this would be the largest single investment in the token by a listed company.

Even more significant is institutional adoption. On September 24, a global investment giant managing $1.6 trillion announced it would expand its proprietary tech platform to this public chain, leveraging its low-cost, high-throughput infrastructure to build on-chain financial assets.

On October 15, a wholly owned subsidiary of a major bank tokenized a money market fund exceeding $3.8 billion, allowing investors to subscribe with fiat or stablecoins and redeem in real-time.

The RWA (Real World Assets) route is the true path for this chain to reach the stars. As more traditional financial institutions choose to deploy assets on this chain, its value will truly be unleashed.

The platform’s token market cap grew to $145.998 billion in Q3, hitting a record high of $1,376 and returning to the TOP 3 crypto assets. Behind this price is capital’s expectation for its ecosystem potential.

As one investment bank analyst said: Crypto assets are like the internet in 1996—they’re still in the early stages. Investment strategies should prioritize “adoption, development, usage, and use cases,” not just short-term price fluctuations.

From this perspective, whether it’s the explosion of on-chain DEXs, the inflow of institutional capital, or the implementation of RWA, all validate the ecosystem’s long-term value. The meme frenzy will pass, but the improvement of infrastructure, the growth of real use cases, and institutional adoption—these are the real hard currencies that can weather cycles.

Numbers don’t lie. When a chain’s active addresses, transaction count, protocol numbers, and TVL are all growing significantly; when top global investment institutions start deploying tens of billions of dollars in assets on it; when traditional banks begin moving money market funds on-chain—these are the true signals of Web3 moving toward mass adoption.

As for the price? That’s just a shadow of value.