# Leaving a centralised exchange, step by step

Updated: 24 September 2026; Terms read 18 September 2026; The Switch Guide editors

The fee is the part people argue about. The fill is the part they miss. This guide walks through what a move off a centralised exchange changes, in the order it hits you — the book you land in, the contract that now holds your collateral, the fee on the way out and in, and the markets that disappear from the list.

## The book you land in, against the book you left

Our own reading of the BTC perpetual book, every 10 minutes in the hours between 07:10 and 23:58 UTC on 22 September 2026. Depth counts resting orders on both sides within 10 basis points of the mid price.

| Venue | Depth within 10 bps | Median spread |
|---|---|---|
| Binance BTC perpetual (the book being left) | $24.8 million | 0.01 bps |
| edgeX | $29.1 million | 0.04 bps |
| EVEDEX | $18.9 million | 4.12 bps |
| Lighter | $17.4 million | 0.01 bps |
| Aster | $14.8 million | 0.01 bps |
| Hyperliquid | $8.5 million | 0.12 bps |
| Extended | $7.7 million | 0.12 bps |
| ApeX Omni | $1.8 million | 0.63 bps |
| Aevo | $1.7 million | 2.07 bps |
| dYdX | $845,469 | 3.54 bps |
| Paradex | $703.00 | 7.75 bps |

A bar is one venue's BTC perpetual book: the dollars resting on both sides within 10 basis points of the mid, taken as the median across every reading that answered. The vertical line is the same measurement on the centralised book you would be leaving, and it stands on far less: 9 readings against the 94 behind a bar, because nothing we asked that book for after 08:31 UTC came back. Read the line as the size of the gap, not as a figure to the dollar. This is the heaviest of the six criteria, and the only one we take ourselves.

## Guide figures

- Resting BTC orders you can move to: $100.7 million — within 10 basis points of the mid price across the 10 venues scored here, the median of 94 readings on each book except Extended's and Lighter's, which answered 93 times each
- The single book you are leaving: $24.8 million — Binance's BTC perpetual, read by the same script on the same day — but a median of 9 readings taken between 07:10 and 08:31 UTC, against 94 taken right across the reading window above
- Cost of a $10,000 round trip: $0.00 to $16.00 — entry-tier taker fees doubled, from Lighter and Paradex at nothing to Aevo at the far end
- Perpetual markets across every venue we track: 2,484 — crypto, shares, currencies, commodities, indices and pre-IPO contracts, scored venues and oracle-priced ones alike
- Open interest on the scored venues: $12.3 billion — each venue's own figure as published by CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026

## The venues, scored

One score per venue, out of 30, from six weights fixed before any venue here was scored. Depth carries the most because it is what a leaver loses first; the columns beside the score are the facts that produced it, so a venue that is cheap but thin does not read like one that is deep but costly.

Weights, fixed 22 September 2026 before a venue on this site was scored: Book depth we measured 28 · Who holds the collateral 22 · Cost of a round trip 18 · Markets on offer 14 · Record so far 12 · Whether the door opens 6. Method in full: https://doliacats.com/methodology

| No. | Venue | Score of 30 | Points out of 10, criterion by criterion | Round trip on $10,000 | Perp markets | Open interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lighter | 25.3 | Book depth we measured 6.5, Who holds the collateral 10.0, Cost of a round trip 10.0, Markets on offer 9.2, Record so far 7.0, Whether the door opens 8.0 | $0.00 | 214 | $585.4 million |
| 2 | edgeX | 23.2 | Book depth we measured 6.9, Who holds the collateral 10.0, Cost of a round trip 6.5, Markets on offer 8.0, Record so far 7.0, Whether the door opens 8.0 | $9.00 | 172 | $635.5 million |
| 3 | Extended | 23.1 | Book depth we measured 5.8, Who holds the collateral 7.0, Cost of a round trip 8.5, Markets on offer 9.6, Record so far 10.0, Whether the door opens 8.0 | $5.00 | 325 | $84.0 million |
| 4 | Aster | 23.0 | Book depth we measured 6.3, Who holds the collateral 7.0, Cost of a round trip 7.0, Markets on offer 10.0, Record so far 10.0, Whether the door opens 8.0 | $8.00 | 578 | $1.4 billion |
| 5 | ApeX Omni | 21.2 | Book depth we measured 4.5, Who holds the collateral 10.0, Cost of a round trip 6.0, Markets on offer 7.7, Record so far 7.0, Whether the door opens 10.0 | $10.00 | 125 | $160.2 million |
| 6 | Hyperliquid | 21.0 | Book depth we measured 5.9, Who holds the collateral 7.0, Cost of a round trip 6.5, Markets on offer 9.6, Record so far 7.0, Whether the door opens 8.0 | $9.00 | 324 | $8.7 billion |
| 7 | EVEDEX | 19.6 | Book depth we measured 6.6, Who holds the collateral 5.0, Cost of a round trip 6.5, Markets on offer 7.8, Record so far 7.0, Whether the door opens 8.0 | $9.00 | 52 | $704.9 million |
| 8 | Paradex | 18.0 | Book depth we measured 0.0, Who holds the collateral 7.0, Cost of a round trip 10.0, Markets on offer 7.0, Record so far 10.0, Whether the door opens 8.0 | $0.00 | 63 | $23.7 million |
| 9 | dYdX | 17.2 | Book depth we measured 3.9, Who holds the collateral 7.0, Cost of a round trip 6.0, Markets on offer 5.2, Record so far 7.0, Whether the door opens 8.0 | $10.00 | 78 | $37.3 million |
| 10 | Aevo | 16.4 | Book depth we measured 4.4, Who holds the collateral 7.0, Cost of a round trip 3.0, Markets on offer 8.5, Record so far 4.0, Whether the door opens 8.0 | $16.00 | 102 | $12.8 million |

Scores are rounded to one decimal place, and a venue carries the same score on every page of this guide: a page condition changes who appears and what sets the order, never the weights. The open-interest column reprints whatever CoinMarketCap showed for each venue on 22 September 2026; the market count is the venue's own, taken from its trading terms and documentation on 18 September 2026. The whole method is on [how we rate](/methodology).

## The books you are leaving

The same script read the centralised books on the same day, under the same rule, so the comparison is like for like. These eight are not scored — this guide is about where you are going, not where you are — but their books are the yardstick every bar above is measured against.

| Centralised exchange | Median spread | Depth within 10 bps | Impact of a $100,000 order | Readings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Binance | 0.01 bps | $24.8 million | 0.01 bps | 9 |
| Bybit | 0.01 bps | $48.0 million | 0.01 bps | 9 |
| OKX | 0.01 bps | $23.8 million | 0.01 bps | 93 |
| Kraken | 0.12 bps | $23.5 million | 1.13 bps | 93 |
| HTX | 0.01 bps | $20.8 million | 0.02 bps | 94 |
| MEXC | 0.01 bps | $17.1 million | 0.01 bps | 93 |
| Bitget | 0.01 bps | $8.8 million | 0.07 bps | 94 |
| KuCoin | 0.01 bps | $8.1 million | 0.80 bps | 94 |

Contracts read: BTCUSDT on Binance, Bybit, Bitget and MEXC, BTC-USDT-SWAP on OKX, XBTUSDTM on KuCoin, BTC-USDT on HTX and PF_XBTUSD on Kraken. Depth counts resting orders on both sides within 10 basis points of the mid price; impact is the median move a market order of that size would have caused against the book as it stood.

## What actually changes

A centralised exchange does four jobs at once: it holds the money, keeps the order book, decides who is
allowed in, and prices the trade. Moving to a book you reach from a wallet splits those jobs apart. The
collateral sits in a contract you can open on a block explorer, the book stays with an operator, and
nobody asks for a passport — but nobody carries your loss either, and the withdrawal button belongs to
code written by people and reviewed by other people.

Price that trade rather than argue about it. On 22 September 2026 the deepest book among
the venues scored here held $29.1 million of resting BTC orders within 10 basis points of the mid,
against $24.8 million on Binance, from the 9 readings that book returned to us the same morning. A round trip on $10,000 costs nothing at all
on two of these venues. What you pay instead sits in the columns with no dollar sign: fewer markets,
thinner books on anything that is not BTC, no telephone number, and terms that shut out whole countries.

## Step 1 — Six things to settle before you move anything

1. **Read your own fills first.** Work out the size you actually trade, then look up that venue's
   depth line below. A book that holds $845,469 is not a replacement for one that holds
   $24.8 million if your order is five figures.
2. **Find out where the deposit goes.** Open the contract address on a block explorer before you send
   anything to it. A venue that keeps collateral in contracts will show you one; a venue that quietly
   keeps an exchange wallet will not.
3. **Read the settlement page, not the front page.** Every trade recorded on a chain, a proof posted
   for each batch, and a position snapshot written from time to time are three different promises.
4. **Search the documentation for an exit.** "Forced withdrawal", "escape hatch" and "withdraw without
   the operator" should return a described procedure. Three of the venues scored here have one.
5. **Check the terms for your own country** before the deposit, not after. Every venue in this guide
   shuts out somebody, and the lists are not the same.
6. **Rehearse the withdrawal with a small amount.** The deposit always works. The withdrawal is the
   part worth testing while nothing depends on it.

## Step 2 — Where these numbers come from

Two kinds of figure appear on these pages, and they are kept apart on purpose.

**Measured.** Spreads, depth and price impact are ours. A script read each public BTC perpetual order
book every 10 minutes in the hours between 07:10 and 23:58 UTC on 22 September 2026, and the tables print the median of the successful readings with
the count beside them. This is the criterion that carries the most weight, so it is the one we refused
to take from anybody else.

**Read.** Everything a venue writes down about itself was taken from its own documentation and
terms of use on 18 September 2026: the fee schedule, the market list, the leverage ladder,
how margin is held, how a trader signs in, which jurisdictions the terms shut out, what an auditor
found. Quotations are word for word, and the link lands on the page the words sit on. Open interest
and 24-hour volume on these pages are whatever CoinMarketCap showed for each venue on
22 September 2026 — a venue's own reported number, reprinted with the date it was taken.

No account was opened and no trade was placed for this guide, which is why you will not find a
withdrawal time or a support response time on these pages: we have not measured them, so we do not
publish them.

## Every page in this guide

Switching from a named exchange:

- [Binance alternatives and what the door asks](https://doliacats.com/binance-alternatives) — ordered by what each venue writes down about the checks it runs before a deposit is credited
- [Bitget alternatives and their leverage ceilings](https://doliacats.com/bitget-alternatives) — leverage ladders read in full, with the notional each rung actually holds to
- [Bybit alternatives by book depth](https://doliacats.com/bybit-alternatives) — ordered by the BTC depth we measured, for traders who came for the fill
- [KuCoin alternatives](https://doliacats.com/kucoin-alternatives) — the same six criteria applied to a different shortlist, scored end to end
- [OKX alternatives and what they really cost](https://doliacats.com/okx-alternatives) — ordered by what a round trip costs, down to venues that charge nothing
- [MEXC alternatives in score order](https://doliacats.com/mexc-alternatives) — the six criteria set the sequence here; what each venue documents about its checks is read beside that table and sets nothing in it

Compare and decide:

- [CEX alternatives compared](https://doliacats.com/cex-alternatives-one-sheet) — seven of the scored venues on one sheet, in score order, with the book, the fee and the market count beside each
- [EVEDEX vs Aevo](https://doliacats.com/evedex-vs-aevo) — periodic settlement against trade-by-trade, and the cost gap between two multi-asset hybrids
- [Aster vs edgeX](https://doliacats.com/aster-vs-edgex) — an operator-run chain with the longer market list against a rollup that documents an exit

Before you move:

- [What is a non-custodial exchange](https://doliacats.com/non-custodial-exchange-tested) — what the word promises, what it does not, and how to check the claim
- [How we rate](https://doliacats.com/methodology) — six criteria, their weights, what each one counts and how ties are broken
- [About The Switch Guide](https://doliacats.com/about) — who writes this, what is measured here and how corrections are handled

The Switch Guide editors, 24 September 2026. Corrections, say which step it is on and what the venue actually publishes: editorial@doliacats.com

This guide is paid to publish, and a venue you are being walked towards may be the one who bought the walkthrough.