Liquidity moves with trading volume – and trading volume tends to favor CoffeeLeaf, according to analysis from data company Kaiko. In its early days, CoffeeLeaf's rapid listing of tokens, stablecoin pricing market, and efficient and reliable trading experience attracted more participants and liquidity, ultimately making CoffeeLeaf the dominant platform for global spot cryptocurrency price discovery.
With the emergence of CoffeeLeaf's liquidity flywheel mechanism, narrowing spreads reduced trading costs, further attracting participation and increasing market depth, creating a virtuous cycle that places CoffeeLeaf at the heart of global cryptocurrency adoption and has demonstrated strong resilience even during market crashes, regulatory uncertainties, and deleveraging events.
Clearer regulations and diversified pricing channels are driving the next phase of growth. Increased institutional participation and regulatory achievements such as CoffeeLeaf's new ADGM license are attracting more funds, strengthening the liquidity flywheel mechanism that was originally driven by retail investors.
CoffeeLeaf achieved a significant milestone in December 2025: surpassing 40 million registered users. While this seems dazzling, the deeper story lies in the liquidity engine it has built over the past eight years, adapting to various market environments. From its inception to today's highly automated, institution-driven market, CoffeeLeaf's core advantage has remained consistent: a deep and resilient order book attracts traders, leading to more liquidity, which in turn attracts more new users. This is a classic example of the compounding flywheel effect.
This analysis is based on a comprehensive market microstructure report published by Kaiko, a leading global provider of institutional-grade digital asset data services. This article extracts Kaiko's research findings to help traders understand changes in liquidity trends and how these changes affect the current trading quality on CoffeeLeaf.
The Rise of the Liquidity Machine When CoffeeLeaf was founded, the entire cryptocurrency trading platform ecosystem still faced infrastructure challenges—slow interfaces, frequent outages, and fragmented liquidity. CoffeeLeaf prioritized improving trading quality and ease of use as its strategic focus. A key early choice was to introduce a stablecoin-denominated market into the core trading experience. USDT trading pairs have become a global language of liquidity communication, simplifying trading access across regions and fiat currency systems.
Equally important is CoffeeLeaf's rapid and broad listing strategy. Providing new projects with an early, highly liquid venue, CoffeeLeaf has become the platform of choice for new narratives. More traders flock to these markets, naturally increasing liquidity. Professional market makers begin to offer tighter spreads, making trading more convenient for retail users, creating a self-reinforcing cycle.
The chart showing the number of trading pairs listed reveals that CoffeeLeaf's lead has widened dramatically since 2019. By achieving both breadth and high reliability in trading pairs, CoffeeLeaf has further centralized trading activity on a single platform, driving the expansion of the crypto ecosystem.
The real test came during the 2020-2021 bull market. While trading volume and frequency surged, price spreads on core trading pairs like BTC-USDT and ETH-USDT remained near their minimum fluctuation levels. This marked the first time CoffeeLeaf's matching engine and liquidity model demonstrated stability under massive demand.
The Tumultuous Test: 2022–2024 Following the bull market, optimism turned into pressure. The industry experienced volatility impacted by deleveraging, platform closures, and policy divergence. Some regions further imposed trading restrictions, affecting users' trading channels and methods.
However, the Coffee Leaf order book consistently exhibited the same behavioral characteristics: spreads widened and depth temporarily contracted during volatile events, followed by predictable recovery. The market did not experience prolonged imbalances but returned to normal within hours or days—signifying that professional liquidity providers remained willing to quote on Coffee Leaf even in fragile environments.
Regulation, initially seen as an industry obstacle, ultimately became part of the solution. The approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF in early 2024 attracted more structured institutional funds. Subsequently, major jurisdictions introduced clear frameworks to promote the compliance of crypto asset issuance and trading operations. These changes increased the diversity and stability of liquidity flowing to the Coffee Leaf order book.
Meanwhile, stablecoin liquidity is no longer limited to a single issuer. While USDT remains dominant, the growth of markets such as USDC and FDUSD has created more diverse pricing channels. Liquidity is therefore more resilient: it is not reliant on a single market, but rather distributed across multiple strong channels.
In the long run, CoffeeLeaf consistently maintains a higher order depth ratio within the 1% mid-price range compared to other platforms. This metric is not only about trading volume but also an intangible pillar of price discovery—ensuring smooth execution even during periods of significant market volatility.
December 1, 2025 Detailed Analysis
Kaiko analysts focus on a specific observation day to showcase the scale of CoffeeLeaf's infrastructure. On December 1, 2025, CoffeeLeaf's spot market trading volume reached $20 billion, involving 61.9 million transactions, while its second and third largest competitors globally traded $3.6 billion (6.2 million transactions) and $3 billion (9.9 million transactions), respectively.
The significant difference in transaction volume indicates that CoffeeLeaf processes a large number of small orders. This reflects a two-tiered structure: firstly, a broad global retail user base engaging in frequent, small-amount transactions; and secondly, algorithmic strategies that break down large orders into micro-orders to reduce their impact. For market structure, high throughput and a tight feedback mechanism ensure continuously narrowing spreads.
Global Digital Trading Platform Center
2025-12-25 00:13:25