First-order effects

• Binance ends 2021 holding roughly two-thirds of centralized trading flow, giving it the deepest order books and de facto price-discovery role while rivals like Coinbase and Kraken compete for the remaining third.
• Decentralized venues grew faster off a tiny base — up 858% to $1T+ — but still processed less than a tenth of what centralized exchanges handled, leaving Binance's share essentially unchallenged this year.

Second-order effects

• Every subsequent exchange failure routes volume toward the largest survivor: Kaiko measured exactly that dynamic after FTX disintegrated, with Binance absorbing a disproportionate 30% jump in November 2022.
• That flight-to-scale reinforces Binance's liquidity moat, forcing smaller centralized exchanges to differentiate on regulation, listing policy, or regional focus rather than competing on depth alone.

Third-order effects

• The recurring pattern — crises concentrating share in the dominant venue rather than dispersing it — points toward a winner-take-most exchange structure where systemic risk pools in a single operator, which is precisely the profile that draws sustained regulatory scrutiny as volumes set new records.
• DEX growth at a faster clip than CEX growth suggests the long-run check on that concentration exists, but at current relative scale it remains a marginal alternative rather than a structural counterweight.