The Great Reshaping: How Binance, OKX, and Gate Are Redefining the CEX Landscape in 2025

Market Background: Restructuring of the Exchange in the New Cycle

As the clock strikes the second half of 2025, the atmosphere of the crypto market is no longer what it used to be. It is no longer the chaos dominated by pure speculative frenzy as in 2021, but a prelude to a more robust and structurally stronger bull market. Bitcoin (BTC) has climbed to the high ground of $100,000, Ethereum (ETH) is approaching $3,000, new funds are streaming in in an orderly manner, the compliance of spot ETFs is being established, and the global regulatory framework is becoming increasingly clear. Against this grand backdrop, industry consensus is gradually forming: the next round of growth will be led by platforms that truly possess technical depth, application value, and ecological integration capabilities.

At this transformative juncture, centralized exchanges (CEX) stand at a historical crossroads. The past role of merely facilitating transactions has become unsustainable; today, the competitive landscape has evolved from simply trading depth and listing speed to a multidimensional competition encompassing ecosystem, security assurance, compliance operations, and technological innovation. Among these, the once-clear divide between CeFi and DeFi is being dismantled—users want to seamlessly access the infinite opportunities of the on-chain world under the convenience and security provided by centralized platforms. In other words, whoever can create a complete asset journey from off-chain to on-chain for users will emerge victorious in the new landscape.

The three giants show their skills: different evolutionary paths.

In the context of the Chinese cryptocurrency market, Binance, OKX, and Gate are regarded as the three major exchange giants. Their commonality lies in their dissatisfaction with merely being a “trading matcher”; instead, they seek to become a more comprehensive hub for user assets. However, the three differ in their strategic evolution direction and pace, showcasing distinctly different evolutionary paths.

Binance

Binance remains the largest exchange in the world by trading volume, with its vast user base and rich product ecosystem creating a strong network effect. From perpetual contracts to Launchpad, as well as wealth management and lending, and its own blockchain ecosystem (BNB Chain), Binance continuously expands services around the entire lifecycle of user assets. However, as the global regulatory environment becomes increasingly stringent, Binance’s expansion pace has become more cautious in recent years. The platform has had to gradually withdraw from multiple markets, including Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands, and even its founder Zhao Changpeng resigned as CEO in 2024 due to regulatory turmoil. Against this backdrop, Binance is strengthening compliance investments on one hand while seeking new balance points on the other, such as gradually introducing decentralized Web3 wallet features in the platform application. At the end of 2023, Binance launched its first self-custody Web3 wallet, supporting 30 blockchain networks, allowing users to create this wallet through the Binance App and directly participate in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. This move indicates that the global leading exchange is also attempting to bridge centralized platforms and the Web3 world, providing users with services that are both compliant and secure as well as innovative.

OKX

OKX has embarked on a path of comprehensive on-chain ecological integration. Over the past two years, OKX has vigorously built a product matrix that includes OKX Wallet, cross-chain support, the public chain OKBChain (also known as X1), a DEX aggregator, and an NFT marketplace. By centering around its own non-custodial wallet, OKX aims to guide CeFi users to smoothly transition into explorers and long-term participants of on-chain assets. For example, OKX announced the launch of the Layer2 public chain “X1” based on Polygon technology, aimed at introducing users to the Web3 world through a high-performance network with low barriers to entry. This chain will use OKB as gas fees and is seen as an important pillar for OKX to drive users onto the chain. According to OKX executives, the positioning of X1 is to enable developers to build user-friendly decentralized applications while maintaining interoperability with other networks. Furthermore, OKX’s wallet now supports over 100 public chains, with a built-in decentralized trading aggregator and NFT trading market, facilitating users to participate in a multi-chain ecosystem in one stop. This deep on-chain layout brings strong ecological synergy advantages to OKX, but also poses challenges—OKX must continuously enhance the activity of on-chain products and retain users in order for the large CeFi user base to truly integrate into its Web3 ecosystem.

Gate (大门)

The route of Gate (大门) stands out as unique. This well-established exchange, founded in 2013, has steadily developed through multiple bull and bear cycles without being marginalized like some other long-standing platforms; instead, it has achieved new breakthroughs in recent years. Notably, Gate’s performance in the derivatives market and on-chain integration is commendable. According to the monthly report data on cryptocurrency exchanges released by CoinDesk in May 2025, Gate is one of the strongest platforms in the derivatives sector this year, with its perpetual contracts’ open interest rising to 4th place globally, and its market share climbing from 11% at the end of 2024 to 16%. This achievement is not solely reliant on a single product, but rather stems from a comprehensive effort combining strategic tools, user education, and trading experience. Gate was the first to introduce AI strategy trading and copy trading features on its platform and established an intelligent risk control system, making advanced derivatives trading, which was previously only manageable by professional traders, friendly and accessible to ordinary users. In other words, by lowering the barriers to strategy trading, Gate has successfully brought more retail users into its derivatives market, resulting in significant growth momentum.

At the same time, in terms of on-chain business, Gate has taken a fusion route different from other platforms. Its built-in Gate Alpha platform is not just a simple DApp browser, but a deeply integrated on-chain asset discovery platform within the exchange system. Gate Alpha uses an AI engine to monitor on-chain trends, capital flows, and address behaviors in real-time, allowing it to quickly identify promising early projects and complete internal reviews for launch, enabling users to invest in emerging on-chain assets without delay. More importantly, users do not need to switch wallets or pay Gas fees; they can directly use their exchange account funds to buy and sell these on-chain tokens with just one click, significantly lowering the participation threshold. Data shows that as of May 2025, Gate Alpha’s cumulative trading volume has exceeded $3 billion, with over 60% of newly listed tokens doubling in price within a week of their launch. This indicates that Gate has achieved good results in helping users discover opportunities in the on-chain blue ocean.

In addition, Gate underwent a unified upgrade of its product architecture in 2025, and the new version of Gate Wallet is no longer a standalone wallet application, but rather an “investment control center” that integrates trading entry, strategy management, NFT market, asset security, and hardware wallet. This version of the wallet widely incorporates AI features, supporting users in asset prediction configurations, on-chain strategy automation, and even one-click cross-chain asset migration. Meanwhile, Gate also launched a complementary NFC hardware wallet card—Gate Wallet Touch, which provides bank-level security for users’ digital assets through chip-level mnemonic protection and biometric technologies. It can be said that the integration of centralized user experience and on-chain functionalities has permeated a series of recent product innovations by Gate:

• AI-powered strategy trading: Introducing intelligent trading bots and copy trading features, allowing novice users to easily replicate expert strategies and enjoy the results of professional trading strategies.
• Built-in on-chain asset discovery: Launching the Gate Alpha platform, leveraging big data and AI to identify early-stage quality projects, listing high-potential tokens for users to invest in, and lowering the technical barriers for trading on-chain assets.
• Comprehensive wallet upgrade: Release of Gate Wallet version 2025, integrating multi-chain asset management, strategy tools, and NFT trading modules, along with the launch of the NFC hardware card Gate Wallet Touch, enhancing asset security and user experience.

It is precisely through the above measures that Gate, as an “old player” in the industry, has shown a unique growth momentum in this new cycle that emphasizes practicality and efficiency. It does not blindly pursue the completely decentralized freedom of DeFi, but continuously guides users towards a broader on-chain world within a controllable user experience. This pragmatic product perspective allows it to maintain the usability and security of a centralized platform while gradually embracing on-chain innovation opportunities. An industry report noted that Gate is one of the few exchanges that recently saw a significant rise in rankings, making it into the top three globally in the latest derivatives exchange benchmark ratings. Gate’s ability to achieve growth in both trading volume and market share confirms the success of its innovation-driven, diversified product, and globalization strategy. In the competitive second half that focuses on building user value ecosystems, Gate has become a case worthy of special attention.

Conclusion: Competition and Choice in the New Track

Looking back at the first half of 2025, the competition among cryptocurrency exchanges has clearly entered the “second half.” The focus of competition is no longer on who has the largest traffic or the fastest coin listing, but rather on who can create the most comprehensive, secure, and efficient value ecosystem for users. Binance, OKX, and Gate, the three major Chinese exchanges, represent three different paths: global ecological integration, on-chain expansion, and strategic innovation. However, they all share the common goal of redefining the roles and boundaries of centralized platforms. For ordinary users, this means that when choosing an exchange, one needs to consider not only the transaction fees or the speed of new listings, but also to think about: which platform can truly accompany them throughout the entire journey from off-chain trading to on-chain creation?

In this new cycle, perhaps what we should really focus on is not a temporarily popular project, but rather those foundational platforms that are continuously evolving and can respond to new user demands. Among the three major Chinese-speaking platforms, Gate is becoming a highly regarded platform due to its outstanding performance in derivatives and on-chain integration. It is foreseeable that, in the face of the coming wave of transformation, partnering with these forward-looking exchanges will be key for users to seize the next round of opportunities.