A new report from liquidation data tracker CoinGlass has revealed the staggering scale of the cryptocurrency derivatives market in 2025. The total trading volume for the year reached a colossal $85.70 trillion, translating to an average daily turnover of approximately $264.5 billion. This solidifies derivatives as the dominant layer of crypto market activity, surpassing spot trading in influence.
The market remains highly concentrated, with four exchanges controlling the majority of volume. Binance retained its top position, processing roughly $25.09 trillion or 29.3% of all global crypto derivatives trading. OKX, Bybit, and Bitget followed, with each logging between $8.2 trillion and $10.8 trillion in annual volume. Together, these four platforms accounted for approximately 62.3% of the total market share.
The year was marked by significant volatility and a major structural shift. CoinGlass noted that 2025 saw wider institutional participation, with firms using futures and options for hedging, basis trades, and ETF-related strategies. This contributed to the growth of regulated markets, with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) consolidating its lead in Bitcoin futures open interest.
However, this growth in size and complexity came with heightened systemic risk. The report highlighted that the market has moved away from simple leverage cycles toward deeper chains of interconnected positions across exchanges, ETFs, and structured products. This increased "tail risk," meaning extreme events could impose unprecedented stress on margin mechanisms and risk transmission pathways.
The most severe stress test occurred in early October. The nominal value of crypto liquidations for the entire year exceeded $150 billion, implying an average of $400 to $500 million liquidations daily. A massive, historic liquidation squeeze was triggered on October 10th, as Bitcoin crashed shortly after setting a new all-time high above $126,000. The combined short and long derivatives flush hit the $19 billion mark in a single day, which CoinGlass notes may have actually approached $30–40 billion when accounting for disclosure timing and market maker feedback. This event was the largest single-day liquidation squeeze in the sector's history.
The damage was overwhelmingly borne by bullish traders, with approximately 85% to 90% of the liquidated positions being long bets. CoinGlass linked the trigger to a broader macro shock: an announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump imposing 100% tariffs on imports from China, which pushed global markets into a sharp risk-off move. Derivatives trading volume surged to $748.3 billion on October 10th, nearly three times the yearly average, highlighting their role as the "core battlefield for price discovery."
The report concludes that while the market has grown larger and more sophisticated, it has not eliminated fragility. As institutional strategies mix with retail leverage, stress events may become less frequent but more violent when they arrive.
