BitMart and BitMex going under—honestly, I think @colinwu nailed it. These two didn’t collapse because of a blow-up like FTX; it’s a completely different story. Their downfall was mainly due to business issues. Back in 2023, BitMart was already reaching out to people around me to discuss acquisitions. They even did a lot of data work at the time, but nothing came of it in the end. Honestly, a big reason why so many third-tier exchanges started declining was the impact of Binance’s Alpha. Smaller exchanges have always been the hub for all kinds of altcoins, pump-and-dump coins, MLM coins, and community tokens. But with Alpha’s emergence, these coins found a better home, which led to a sharp drop in listing fees and a big hit to the profits from joint market-making. Another factor is the so-called “signal providers.” There aren’t that many of them overall, but they’ve got waves of followers under them. These providers usually hop between exchanges, and as soon as a new exchange offers better profits, they quickly move their people over. The recent high-profile exchange collapses all seem to follow this general pattern.