For a period of nine months, Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, allowed you to trade some bitcoin (BTC) trading pairs free of charge. That measure made CEO Changpeng Zhao’s exchange platform, which was already at the top of the market, even more popular among active traders. Now, however, Binance is announcing that it is ending free trading and is only allowing free trading between bitcoin and the TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoin.
Binance just eliminated most zero fee #BTC trading.
This is a pretty big deal. Zero fees helped them gain a massive +20% market share since July. pic.twitter.com/nhDqz6sZxH
— Clara Medalie (@Clara_Medalie) March 22, 2023
Binance market share increased from 50% to 72%
It is quite possible that Binance’s market share will take at least a small hit as a result of this decision. About 60 percent of the total trading volume on the exchange platform came from the trading pairs for which the exchange did not charge any costs.
It is also striking that Binance chooses to only keep trading between TUSD and BTC free. It seems that this is the stablecoin Binance prefers at the moment.
Shortly after the introduction of free trading of some bitcoin trading pairs on the exchange platform, Binance’s market share skyrocketed. Analysis company Kaiko reports that Binance’s market share increased from 50 to 72 percent during that period.
Smart strategy from Binance
Binance’s choice to reduce the trading costs of some bitcoin trading pairs to zero during the bear market was extremely smart. At that time, trading volumes on the exchanges were already much lower than in the previous year and some exchange platforms were in trouble. Binance was probably trying to give some competitors the final tap at the time.
It is quite possible that there was considerable panic in the boardrooms of competitors after Binance came up with this power move. Now the market has calmed down again and Binance has also chosen to scrap the free trading pairs in bitcoin.