Arkham’s crypto exchange is allegedly deciding to shut down after struggling to attract sufficient trading volume in the current market slump.
Arkham Intelligence started the exchange in 2020, and it now has more than 3 million users. The company said in October 2024 that it would open a crypto derivatives exchange for regular investors and compete with big players like Binance.
The platform has had to rethink its place in the market, though, because the overall crypto market is down and big companies like Coinbase and Binance own a monopoly.
Arkham sees fall in daily volumes
By early 2025, Arkham Exchange had rolled out spot crypto trading across several U.S. states and introduced a mobile app in December to improve accessibility and engagement.
However, the platform never managed to gain meaningful traction. Trading activity remained extremely low compared with industry leaders, with Arkham recording just under $620,000 in past 24-hour volume. Binance, on the other hand, handled almost $9 billion every day, while Coinbase handled about $2 billion.
The gap shows how hard it is for smaller exchanges to compete in a market where big, well-known platforms have a lot of liquidity and a lot of users.
Arkham Exchange has a lot of registered users and a background in data analytics, but it was hard for the company to turn interest into real trading. In the end, the company has to shut down the platform and focus on other things in the crypto space.
Arkham investor support
Arkham Intelligence has a lot of money because its sponsors are well-known venture capitalists like Sam Altman, Draper Associates, Binance Labs, and Bedrock.
The firm has its native cryptocurrency, ARKM, which it uses as a utility coin within its system. As of writing, the cryptocurrency was changing hands at around $0.12.
Though the token is the catalyst behind the activities facilitated by the platform, the closure of the exchange by the firm indicates that even well-funded projects may find it hard to attract clients in the increasingly competitive space dominated by players such as Binance and Coinbase.