CryptoQuant Means The Most Transparent Stock Exchange

The report ranked the exchange’s reserves, trading activity, and transparency, with KuCoin scoring 96.7 out of 100.

KuCoin received the highest Proof of Withdrawal (PoR) score among major crypto exchanges, according to CryptoQuant’s latest annual Exchange Leader report.

The findings put the Seychelles-based trading platform ahead of several major rivals in a category that many traders consider important in assessing an exchange’s solvency.

Report Exchange Rates on Reserves and Trading Activity

The report, which reviewed the exchange’s performance across trading volume, custody disclosures, and derivatives activity through 2025, shows KuCoin receiving a PoR reflection score of 96.7 out of 100, the highest in the dataset.

The KuCoin score features a monthly proof of reserves framework that allows users to verify their balance using the Merkle-tree input tools. The exchange also publishes wallet addresses and receives third-party proof from security firm Hacken.

CryptoQuant said the exchange has posted more than 39 consecutive months of reserve reports, the most recent being February 6, 2026. Public reserve ratios were over 100%.

Bybit ranks second on the transparency scale with a score of 93.2, and is supported by regular PoR disclosures and Hacken evidence. Kraken is ranked A again, although its quarterly reporting cycle lowered its score compared to the monthly report of KuCoin and Bybit.

Meanwhile, larger exchanges scored the lowest in this category, with Binance scoring 75.2 points, indicating extensive wallet disclosure and user balance verification tools but no full independent audit covering the entire balance sheet of the exchange.

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Coinbase ranked the lowest, with 44.3 points, mainly because it does not publish a complete wallet address map or provide on-chain verification of customer balances.

The level of transparency forms one part of CryptoQuant’s Exchange Leader Index, which measures platforms using six pillars: trading volume, reserves, proof of transparency, trading mix balance, volume growth, and share growth. In the overall index, MEXC, Binance, and Bybit hold the top three positions in 2025.

Derivatives Trading Dominates Exchange Activity

The report also examined trading patterns across the major markets and found that most major platforms now record the majority of activity in derivatives markets rather than spot trading. MEXC, Bybit, Bitget, Binance, Sango, and Coinbase made 70% to 90% of their volume in perpetual futures contracts.

However, KuCoin sits in the middle of discussions with a balanced mix between spot trading and derivatives. CryptoQuant placed it in a group with HTX and Kraken, where both segments contributed significant volumes rather than one dominating the other.

By overall trading size, Binance is still the largest exchange, processing approximately $32.4 trillion in annual trading revenue by 2025. About $25 trillion of that amount comes from the derivatives market, and about $7 trillion comes from spot trading.

Growth across the industry has been highly variable, with Sango recording the fastest growth in derivatives, as futures prices consistently rise more than 400% year-on-year. Coinbase also posted a large percentage gain after completing its Deribit acquisition and launching Solana-based DEX trading, while MEXC nearly doubled its trading volumes on the platform during the same period.