According to data from Block works, the ratio of decentralized exchange spot volume compared to centralized exchange spot volume falling in Q2 by about 6% to under 21%.
Now this as centralized crypto exchanges are embracing Defi and Robinhood's a layer to blockchain which rolled out at the start of the month, quickly amassing over $400 million in total value lock and Coinbase has the clear.
With its layer two chain having about $4.5 billion in total value, centralized crypto exchanges are evolving from simple trading venues into the primary on-ramps for global institutional finance.
Many exchanges missing the final Mika deadline to secure a license to operate in Europe, but more regulatory progress seen in England as well as Japan and even Russia announcing a crypto framework today.
Well, joining us to break all of this down is Jing Wang, who is CEO of Opi Labs.
Jing, great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Hi, thanks for having me.
Well, here we are, the second half of 2026 is underway.
So give us your take when it comes to centralized exchanges and tell us about this elder millennial thesis.
Yeah, um, you know, crypto is having its, uh, institutional moment.
Um, and I think about it as the, you know, old generation of finance and the new generation of finance, and elder millennials are kind of this in between generation.
They speak crypto.
They speak DG.
A lot of the terminology is different, but they also have played for the better part of the last decade in a regulated environment.
Yeah, and speaking of institutional adoption, you and I are here at the New York Stock Exchange on the trading floor here in Wall Street so I do want to get your take on optimism here.
Tell us about the OP stack for the layperson.
Yeah, so you know, a couple decades ago we had this big push from on-prem to uh cloud, for example, and now there's a similar push in finance from you know manual or siloed processes to fully digitized workflows and optimism is the technology underpinning that.
So digitizing your workflows, tokenizing your assets, deploying applications, we provide the code underpinning all of that infrastructure.
Um, so lots of major exchanges such as Robinhood, such as Coinbase, um, have blockchains today, um, and we are the tech stack underpinning Coinbase's Base, uh, OX's X layer, Krakeens Inc, and many more.
Yeah, and when we talk about what's happening here, there's been a lot of focus on infrastructure but also concerns about wall gardens.
So tell us about what you're doing and what your vision is.
Yeah, so, um.
We believe that the main wall in the garden to break down is the walls around.
The currency and so you know for example today if you have Venmo and Zelle it's really hard to send a dollar between these two applications even though it is at the end of the day the same asset and so um at Optimism we call this interoperability or asset interoperability so companies should be able to have their own chains, in other words, uh, environments to digitize their assets, store their user information, launch applications.
Without breaking down the fungibility and the interoperability of the core assets and of course when we're talking about the space there are concerns about regulation, but at the same time speed is a necessity in addition to compliance.
So what is your competitive advantage we have a very global footprint and we have clients in Japan.
In Korea, also in the United States and Europe, and the regulations are different, so that is something that we've focused a lot of time and energy on is the regulatory and compliance toolkit that comes out of the box with the OP stack and so you can have your compliance team plug in any compliance logic that you want and I do want to get your take on the revenue engine when it comes to centralized exchanges.
What is happening there?
Yeah, um, it's uh, it's super interesting, uh, the way that you charge fees in crypto is a little bit different than in what we call TradF, um, and the OP stack enables you to customize that whether it is how transactions are ordered, if it's done deterministically, uh, what the compliance rules for transaction ordering are, uh, and how you want to charge on a per transaction basis.
And of course I do want to get your take on the advantage that perhaps Europe might have given Mika here.
So what do you think is the advantage and what does the US need to do moving forward?
Yes, it's funny.
The advantage is clarity, regulatory clarity, no matter what the rules.
As long as innovators, founders, builders know what the rules are, we can work with that.
Um, as long as there's ambiguity, there's always going to be, uh, some cost in understanding how you can further your product so I'm looking forward to the clarity that clarity will bring and of course as we head into the second half of this year, it is a midterm election year here in the US and there are a lot of expectations when it comes to the uh regulatory landscape but what are you paying attention to right now?
Um, I think, uh, it's really hard to say what will happen.
Um, one thing I'm really grateful for is that, uh, people on both sides of the aisle are working really hard to keep the US as a center of innovation for blockchains and crypto.
Um, so I'm trying not to have too many hopes.
I'm just got my fingers crossed, and I'm sure you have plenty of conversations with stakeholders, not just here in the US but also overseas.
So what is top of mind right now?
Top of mind right now is that, um, I think now is the time to move.
Um, crypto breaks down a lot of, uh, silos, a lot of mental models that, uh, businesses had had previously.
Similar to, you know, for example, Robinhood pioneering zero commission fee trading, uh, fundamentally changing business models and user behavior, there are about a dozen of those, uh, similar changes that crypto brings, and so I think companies and startups, uh, yeah, now is the time to capture the market.
Well, Jane, it was a pleasure having you on the show.
Thank you so much for joining us today and thank you so much for sharing all of your insights.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you.
