Bybit placed second with a score of 93.2, also backed by regular disclosures and Hacken attestations. Kraken landed in the A tier but scored lower due to its quarterly reporting cycle.
Binance received 75.2, reflecting broad wallet disclosures but no full independent audit of its entire balance sheet.
Coinbase ranked far behind at 44.3, largely because it does not publish comprehensive wallet address mappings or offer on-chain verification for customer balances.
In the overall Exchange Leader Index — which combines six pillars including trading volume, reserves, and volume growth — MEXC, Binance, and Bybit held the top three positions for 2025. Separately, the report found that derivatives trading now dominates most major platforms, with MEXC, Bybit, Bitget, Binance, Gate, and Coinbase generating 70% to 90% of their volume from perpetual futures contracts.
Binance remained the largest exchange by volume, processing roughly $32.4 Trillion in annual trading during 2025, with about $25 Trillion from derivatives and $7 Trillion from spot. Gate recorded the fastest derivatives growth, with perpetual futures volumes up more than 400% year over year.
Why It Matters: Trust After FTX
The rankings arrive as proof-of-reserves has shifted from an optional disclosure to what many traders consider a baseline requirement. The gap between KuCoin's 96.7 and Coinbase's 44.3 illustrates how unevenly the industry has adopted reserve verification standards, even among platforms with billions of dollars in customer deposits.
CryptoQuant's methodology penalizes exchanges that rely on quarterly rather than monthly reporting or that lack independent audits covering full balance sheets.
Alexey Bondarev is the Head of Content at Yellow.com, having reported on crypto for the last 10 years. He specializes in in-depth Research and Learn pieces, with a focus on analytical reporting, industry context, and the bigger forces shaping crypto, from the AI era and security technologies to fintech innovation. He believes that everything digital will imminently overcome everything analogue and is working hard to make that come true.
