The recent departure of Binance's CEO and the $4 billion settlement of U.S. criminal charges against the leading digital asset exchange on Tuesday did not have a major disruptive effect on the broader cryptocurrency market. However, it has had an impact on Binance's order book liquidity, making trading conditions more complex for large traders.
According to data from Kaiko, liquidity for major cryptocurrencies on the platform, as measured by the 0.1% and 1% market depth indicators, has decreased by at least 25% in the past 24 hours. Liquidity levels are now below $150 million for the 0.1% market depth indicator and approximately $180 million for the 1% market depth indicator. Market depth represents the cumulative volume of buy and sell orders within a certain percentage range of the mid-price, which is the average of the bid and ask prices.
To put it differently, making a 0.1% or 1% market impact in either direction is now 25% easier than it was just 24 hours ago. This change also implies that executing large orders on Binance at stable prices has become more challenging, exposing significant traders, often referred to as "whales," to slippage. Slippage refers to the difference between the price initially quoted when a trader places an order and the actual price they end up paying when the order is executed.
Currently, it is still uncertain whether the liquidity that has decreased on Binance has migrated to other cryptocurrency exchanges.
On Tuesday, Binance's founder, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, resigned as CEO and pleaded guilty as part of the settlement with the U.S. authorities. Since then, users have withdrawn nearly $1 billion in funds from the exchange.
The value of Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, experienced a nearly 4% drop to $35,700 late on Tuesday, only to recover to $36,500 at the time of this writing.
