Svmuu News: In response to the successive closures of BitMEX and BitMart, crypto researcher Haotian posted on X, stating: “ Two exchanges have run into trouble one after another, and I see quite a few people gloating, thinking that some exchanges need to ‘blow up’ to fuel the next bull market. Well, while there are certainly some indicators pointing to a shift from bear to bull market, the logic behind this shakeout may be different from what most people think:
1) Amid the overall trend toward compliance, competition among CEXs is far more cutthroat than imagined. Licensing, proof of reserves, KYC/AML/KYT, segregation of client assets, and other compliance issues have become the prerequisites for an exchange’s survival.
This has significantly reduced the likelihood of CEX “collapses,” and the zero-sum game logic of the past—where “one whale’s fall spurs the rise of many”—has vanished entirely. Therefore, rather than being sudden collapses, these are proactive shutdowns in the face of immense competitive pressure—a result of healthy market competition;
2) CEX competition in the tokenization of U.S. stocks sector is, in fact, a strategic move by exchanges to actively expand their channel business. It also signals that the traditional platform business model—which relied primarily on listing fees and trading commissions—is no longer viable. Instead, the introduction of tokenized U.S. stocks, ETFs, pre-IPO assets—requires the urgent development of entirely new revenue streams and growth opportunities.
However, the replacement of crypto-native assets by traditional TradFi assets inherently means that CEXs are losing their pricing and settlement power. While relying on Perps may seem to sustain trading volume and revenue in the short term, in the long run, the “cost” of the pricing hub being reduced to a mere channel and gateway will inevitably have to be faced; Therefore, the fiercer the competition in tokenized U.S. stocks becomes, the greater the survival pressure on CEXs. As you can see, those unqualified to compete are essentially doomed;
3) Right now, CEXs—especially small and medium-sized exchanges—must find a unique positioning to survive. Just as small exchanges in the previous cycle relied on IEOs and other high-quality on-chain assets to attract traffic and users, there now seems to be only one viable path: either focus deeply on regional licenses and localized services, exploit regulatory loopholes, focus on a specific product niche—such as TradFi assets, Perps, or RWAFi—or fully embrace crypto-native innovation narratives, including DeFi, the Agentic Economy, and MEMEs, to weather the cycle by leveraging the power of crypto-native communities. Either way, continuing with homogenized cutthroat competition will only accelerate the wave of eliminations—though, that said, weeding out some of the less competitive players isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”