As of April 7, 2026, Beijing time, the spot trading volume of centralized exchanges (CEX) in the cryptocurrency market has been pointed out by several Chinese media and research institutions as “continuously declining,” especially the weak performance during the entire period of 2025-2026, which has evolved from a local phenomenon into a multi-source consensus. In such a trading environment, the buying momentum for altcoins has significantly cooled, their price performance has been weak for a long time, and intraday rebounds are often lacking in sustainability. On one hand, the market is looking forward to the formal start of a new round of行情, while on the other hand, it has to face the reality of liquidity contraction and insufficient spot trading activity. This contradictory state of “wanting to rise but lacking funds” is becoming the core annotation of the current cycle.

Continuously Shrinking Volume: Order Books Are Thinning

In April 2026, several Chinese cryptocurrency media outlets such as Planet Daily and Jinse Caijing reported that the mainstream CEX spot trading volume has shown a continuous shrinking trend over the past period, and this is a common phenomenon across platforms and currencies. These reports do not rely on single point data from any one exchange, but rather outline a consensus picture of “volume contraction” through the overall decline in market activity. Correspondingly, the chart released by the official English account of BIT is titled “Altcoin Buying Momentum Fades as Volume Contracts,” directly juxtaposing the weakening buying power of altcoins with the overall shrinking trading volume, emphasizing the simultaneous cooling of both, rather than as isolated events.

On the order book level, the direct consequence of the shrinking volume is reflected in poorer depth and amplified slippage: the decrease in order density leads to wider price gaps between visible buy and sell orders, where a slightly larger market order can significantly push prices up or down. For larger traders, adjusting positions of the same scale is more likely to “stir the market” in the current environment, increasing execution costs and price impacts. In other words, when overall spot volume continues to shrink, the market shifts from a relatively ample state of “someone is taking over, easy to enter and exit” to a fragile phase of “thinning order books, trading issues arise with slight urgency.”

Trading Volume Concentrating to the Heads: Small and Medium Market Caps Face Survival Pressure

While total trading volume significantly declines, the remaining liquidity tends to concentrate on major assets like BTC, ETH, which is also reflected in the synthesized perspectives of multiple media and BIT charts. When market participants’ risk appetite falls, funds naturally gravitate towards assets with better liquidity and more effective price discovery, resulting in a relative increase in trading share of major currency pairs while further squeezing the trading share of small and medium market cap tokens. This “structural concentration” does not offset the fact of overall volume decline but profoundly changes the trading environment among different assets.

For small and medium market cap tokens, the issue is not only that prices drop more than they rise, but also that the trading infrastructure itself is weakening: on one hand, the number of trading pairs for some small coins on CEX has decreased, the pace of new listings has slowed, and there is even a risk of delisting and marginalization; on the other hand, market making depth and order density have simultaneously decreased, widening the price gaps between buyer one and seller one, making the order book appear increasingly “empty.” Independent analyst Markus Thielen also pointed out that the continuous contraction of spot trading activity is one of the important explanations for the weak price trends of altcoins at present.

In such an environment, BIT and Markus Thielen's views are highly consistent: the altcoin sector is more likely to exhibit a weak situation where “small trading drives large fluctuations.” When buying pressure thins and market making is limited, even medium-sized selling pressure can suffice to pull unexpected declines on the market; similarly, occasional capital surges can also create extreme increases in a short time, yet struggle to attract enough following orders, leading to sharp retracements. The volatility appearing to rise is, in fact, a magnification of price vulnerability after liquidity quality deteriorates.

Historical Reflections: Trading Volume Bottoming and Price Trends Are Not Synchronous

Reflecting on past cryptocurrency market cycles, the bottoming of spot trading volume and the true reversal of price trends often do not occur at the same time. Historical experience shows that after a significant decline and an emotional freeze, trading volume can first enter a long-term low mood “numb period,” while prices repeatedly oscillate at low levels or even continue to slowly trend downward until macro liquidity, industry narratives, and incremental funds again resonate, leading to a trend reversal where volume and price both rise. Therefore, “volume shrinkage” is more regarded as a lagging reflection of waning risk appetite and declining trading enthusiasm, rather than a simple signal pointing to “reversal imminent.”

It is important to emphasize that the specific magnitude of this round of volume contraction and its historical comparison currently lacks cross-verified precise numerical support. Descriptions of CEX spot trading volume in research briefs often present qualitative expressions such as “significantly declining,” “continuously shrinking,” and some figures regarding the percentage decrease and periodic new lows remain in pending verification status. Under the premise of incomplete data, hastily interpreting the current volume shrinkage state as a “bottom signal” overlooks time mismatches within the cycles and overestimates the explanatory power of a single indicator. A more cautious approach would be to view this round of volume contraction as a result of cooling sentiments and risk appetite, while conducting multi-dimensional observations in conjunction with price structure, macro policies, and capital flows.

Macro Variables and External Factors: Liquidity Is Only Part of the Answer

At the external chain level, certain macro and industry variables are viewed as potential sources of pressure, but remain only single source information at present, providing more context than conclusions. For instance, the uncertainty in the Bank of Japan's interest rate policy is affecting the valuation system of various risk assets, including cryptocurrency assets, through global interest rate expectations. When the market expects a tightening of the global liquidity environment, institutions and high-capital funds will prioritize reducing allocations to high-volatility, high-risk assets. Crypto spot trading, especially altcoins, naturally becomes an object of reduced weight. This logic has its macro validity, but currently lacks direct, quantifiable validation.

Another clue from a single source is that the advancement of the Samsung Electronics 2nm wafer factory may change the supply rhythm of mining machine chips. If the supply of high-performance mining machines accelerates in the future, it theoretically would affect the mining costs and output rhythm of some computational power-related coins, thereby increasing selling pressure or altering holding structures at certain stages. However, this path through the semiconductor industry chain to miner behavior and then to spot selling involves numerous links and complex variables, far from directly explaining the overall contraction of current CEX spot volume.

Therefore, whether it is the Bank of Japan's policy or the progress of the Samsung wafer factory, they are currently more suitable as background information for understanding external environments, and not as corresponding causal “anchors” to the contraction of spot trading volume. They may marginally influence funding costs and industrial supply, thereby applying pressure on liquidity and risk appetite, but it still requires more data, time, and systematic validation across markets to establish a complete logical link with spot volume shrinkage.

Data Perspective Strategy Response: From Momentum Chasing to Selection

In the phase where overall spot trading volume is shrinking and order books are generally thinning, trading strategies need to shift from “momentum chasing in speculative sentiment” to “selecting tradable targets.” For most investors, prioritizing focus on mainstream coins with sustained trading and good depth, as well as a few high-quality altcoins maintaining stable trading activity on multiple exchanges, is a realistic choice to reduce execution risks. This does not mean giving up all opportunities in small and medium market caps, but rather requiring a clearer expectation of their liquidity status and stricter position management.

Specifically, reliance can be placed more on accessible volume and price data, rather than solely on the price trend:

● Proportion of Trading Volume: Observe changes in the proportion of a certain coin in the overall trading volume of an exchange to judge whether it is still in a “tradable” state, rather than making decisions based solely on short-term candlestick patterns.

● Bid and Ask Depth: Estimate the scale that can be safely traded without triggering excessive slippage through the accumulation of order quantities and price gaps at several levels in front of the order book, avoiding the use of large funds to impact a thin order book depth.

● Actual Number of Transactions: Under the premise of similar total trading volumes, the more transaction numbers often indicate a more dispersed participation and more continuous trading, making it relatively easier to enter and exit, while an extremely small number of large orders may conceal the real issues of insufficient liquidity.

Before volume has significantly recovered, controlling leverage and overall position size is the most direct respect for the current environment. High leverage can rely on tight spreads to hedge short-term fluctuations when liquidity is abundant, but in a phase of thinning order books, any passive reduction of positions or forced liquidations can significantly enlarge losses due to slippage. For individuals and smaller funds, lower leverage, smaller individual sizes, and patient waiting for trading conditions are all necessary conditions for survival in the “volume shrink era.”

Volume Shrinkage Is Not Necessarily a Bottom Signal: Altcoins Need Patience Rather Than Fantasy

Combining current multi-source information, a relatively clear framework can be seen: between 2025 and 2026, CEX spot trading volumes are in a significantly shrinking state, the buying momentum for altcoins has weakened accordingly, price performance has been weak for a long time, while remaining liquidity is more concentrated on major assets such as BTC and ETH. There is a clear correlation between this structural volume contraction and the weak performance of altcoins, but under the premise of lacking more detailed data disaggregation, simplifying it to a single causal relationship is not rigorous.

At the same time, it should be reiterated that most of the current information regarding the decline in trading volume is mainly presented in qualitative descriptions and single sources, with some specific figures and periodic extremes still awaiting verification. To truly characterize this round of liquidity contraction's depth and breadth, more aggregated data at the exchange level and cross-platform comparisons are needed, rather than relying on individual snapshots or localized samples for grand judgments. From a methodological perspective, a genuinely meaningful market start in the medium to long term is often accompanied by volume and price resonance - a significant rebound in trading activity, capital redistributing into the altcoin sector, and price trends reinforcing the recovery of volume, which has not yet clearly appeared at the current stage.

Thus, the attitude towards altcoins should return to patience and selection rather than fantasy and gambling. Before there is a noticeable repair in volume, the focus should be on data: which coins have sustained transactions, which have stable depth, and which maintain real activity across multiple platforms are far more reliable than short-term rallies and social media sentiment. Extending the time frame, waiting for true volume and price resonance to emerge, and then using fuller liquidity and healthier risk appetite to support a new round of market activity may be the best response to this round of “spot trading volume contraction.”

Join our community to discuss and become stronger together!
Official Telegram community: https://t.me/aicoincn
AiCoin Chinese Twitter: https://x.com/AiCoinzh

OKX welfare group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=l61eM4owQ
Binance welfare group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=ynr7d1P6Z

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。