The Crypto Industry’s Leading Data-driven Research

Most CeFi yields rest on a single lending spread. Coinhold runs on four revenue streams, including fee income from a top-seven Bitcoin mining pool, and the difference shows up in both the rate and the risk profile.

As prediction markets gain broader market attention, Hyperliquid is preparing to integrate outcome-based trading directly into HyperCore. HIP-4 could turn event contracts into a native part of the platform’s trading stack, creating a more capital-efficient model for binary outcomes, hedging, and new derivatives-like products.

Institutional capital, tokenized assets, and new licensing regimes are pulling crypto exchanges into territory long held by brokers and banks. The result is a generation of multi-asset platforms competing directly with the traditional financial system they once sat alongside.

In 2025, TRON doubled down on its role as a stablecoin-first settlement layer, pairing ecosystem execution with steady on-chain growth. In H2, the network leaned into real-world distribution and infrastructure upgrades that reinforced TRON’s positioning as core financial rails.

In a year of regulatory shifts and modest volume growth, centralized exchanges expanded beyond trading, reshaping competition through curated listings, derivatives depth, and ecosystem-driven strategies.

Debates around digital energy use were once dominated by Bitcoin. Between 2017 and 2021, mainstream media outlets warned that BTC mining could overwhelm energy production. These warnings never materialized, but they shaped public perception and kept Bitcoin in the spotlight. During the same period, artificial intelligence (AI) quietly scaled into the largest new load on global electricity systems.

Not every mid-sized exchange is a newcomer. Some, like LBank, have spent years quietly refining their products and market quality to enter the top ratings. In this report, we take a closer look.

In this guide we’ll break down a simple, repeatable DYOR process that works for both new tokens and established projects. You’ll learn how to evaluate supply, vesting schedules, liquidity depth, smart-contract safety, holder concentration, team credibility, and real on-chain activity without getting lost in noise or hype.

As centralized exchanges adapt to a changing landscape, the traction of new products has become a crucial strategy for driving growth, user engagement, and market share.

Institutional adoption is reshaping the current DeFi landscape, paving the way for permissioned DeFi and driving the development of institutional infrastructure and zero-knowledge proof-based KYC protocols. This emerging infrastructure for institutional players is creating a clear path for greater institutional inflows into DeFi. Read our latest research to learn more about the rise of permissioned DeFi and its implications for the industry.