Trading on the world’s biggest crypto exchanges is in decline, at least on the basis of the volume of money changing hands. The 17 largest centralized venues cleared $2.3 trillion in spot crypto volume in the second quarter of 2026, down from $3.1 trillion in Q1, and far below the record $6.3 trillion cleared in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Under normal circumstances, this kind of sharp volume drop is a sign of investors’ capitulation to poor market conditions, after which they leave, paving the way for conditions to slowly recover. This time around, there’s reason to suspect that the signal could be quite different, so let’s take a look at what history says tends to happen next, and what’s likely to flip the…