Spot Trading Volume Climbs 10% in January 2026 While Derivatives Market Holds Steady

TLDR:

• Spot trading volume on major crypto exchanges rose approximately 10% in January 2026 versus December 2025. 
• Bitfinex led all exchanges with a 67% spot trading surge, followed by Uniswap at 62% and Upbit at 44%. 
• Derivatives trading volume grew just 0.5% month-on-month, with Hyperliquid posting the top gain at 46%. 
• Website traffic across major exchanges fell 0.3%, with HTX recording the steepest drop at 22% in January.

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January crypto exchange volumes painted a mixed picture across major trading platforms in early 2026. Spot trading jumped 10% month-on-month, derivatives remained nearly flat at 0.5%, and website traffic across major exchanges dipped 0.3%, per Wu Blockchain data.

Spot Trading Jumps 10% With Notable Gains Across Select Exchanges

January crypto exchange volumes reflected a recovery in spot market activity compared to December 2025. The 10% overall increase came as several exchanges posted sharp month-on-month gains.

Others, however, recorded notable declines that offset some of the broader market growth. The data, sourced from CoinGecko, was processed to account for wash trading and bot-related activity.

Bitfinex recorded the strongest spot trading growth among all exchanges in January 2026, rising 67%. Uniswap followed with a 62% month-on-month gain, while Upbit posted a 44% increase over the same period.

These three exchanges drove much of the overall 10% rise seen across the broader spot market.

Wu Blockchain published the monthly exchange report on X, noting that preprocessing was applied to the dataset. The adjustments included outlier removal, metric normalization, and methodological changes.

These steps were taken to reduce the effect of artificial trading activity on the final figures. The firm cited CoinGecko for both spot and derivatives data in the report.

Not all exchanges benefited from the January surge in spot trading activity. HTX posted the steepest decline among tracked platforms, falling 17% month-on-month.

Bybit dropped 16%, and KuCoin recorded a 14% decrease in spot trading volume over the same period.

Derivatives Trading Stays Flat While Traffic Data Shows Modest Shifts

January crypto exchange volumes in the derivatives segment showed little movement, gaining just 0.5% over December 2025. The near-flat result came despite strong performances from a few individual platforms.

Wide variation across exchanges kept the overall figure from moving in either direction meaningfully. The derivatives market showed more stability than the spot segment throughout the month.

Hyperliquid led derivatives trading growth in January 2026 with a 46% month-on-month increase in volume. Crypto.com followed with an 18% gain, and Gate posted an 11% rise during the same period.

Their performances helped counterbalance the sharp declines recorded at other exchanges in the derivatives segment.

MEXC saw the largest drop in derivatives trading volume among tracked exchanges, falling 27% in January 2026. KuCoin declined 17% month-on-month, while Deribit posted an 8% decrease over the same period.

These three exchanges ranked at the bottom for derivatives volume changes in the January report.

Website traffic across major exchanges fell 0.3% in January 2026 compared to December 2025. Upbit led traffic growth with a 9% increase, while KuCoin and Bitfinex each gained 7%.

HTX recorded the sharpest traffic drop at 22%, followed by Bitget at 9% and MEXC at 8%. Traffic figures in the report were sourced from Similarweb.

The post Spot Trading Volume Climbs 10% in January 2026 While Derivatives Market Holds Steady appeared first on Blockonomi.

Source: https://blockonomi.com/spot-trading-volume-climbs-10-in-january-2026-while-derivatives-market-holds-steady/