Altcoin Markets Demand Better Price Beyond Offshore Exchanges

Arthur_0x casts doubts on the price discovery of alts. According to him, this space is dominated by offshore centralized exchanges. Such exchanges consist of Binance, Bybit, and KuCoin. They are dealing with the majority of non-major crypto spot deals. Arthur cautioned against such arrangement that would manipulate reasonable pricing. The posting was done on X at 06:29 UTC, October 15, 2025. It attracted the extensive attention within the crypto community.

Non-major crypto spot market (altcoins) need a better price discovery venue than the current offshore CEX-dominated market structure.

The industry desperately needs a solution to this.

— Arthur (@Arthur_0x) October 15, 2025

This concern is supported in the 2025 research by Kaiko. It demonstrates that altcoins have the malady of thin order books. The reduced number of market makers and liquidity shocks cause instability on prices. The market of Bitcoin is less vulnerable to manipulation compared to altcoins.

Offshore Exchange and Liquidity Gaps

Altcoin price discovery is regulated by the offshore CEXs. They do not work under a tight regulatory control. A lot of them are accused of wash trading. The Chainalysis report in 2025 states that the fake volume is still prevalent. There are exchanges that continue to inflate numbers in order to lure traders. A significant loophole occurred in the 2025 liquidity report by Coingecko. It indicated that it does not take a lot of capital to move the prices of altcoins by 2%. This demonstrates that the liquidity in the case of non-major coins is shallow. Whales can easily move prices through these thin markets.

Altcoin DeFi Solution

The article on DeFi by Arthur led to the responses of DeFi builders. @0xDeFiDevin suggested automated market makers as the solution. AMMs, such as Uniswap and SushiSwap, have transparent prices. Liquidity pools are used rather than order books. That restrains artificial volume and enhances the visibility of prices.

According to DefiLlama records, the volume per day at Uniswap is currently $1-2 billion. More than 67 percent of them are Layer 2 networks. Yet, the DEX liquidity is not even across the altcoins. Several smaller tokens are traded with a slip of over 5% above. Other users stated Hyperliquid, a new DeFi platform. It relies on an entirely on-chain order book. All trades and liquidations are on-chain. The activity in 2025 was increasing as reported by OakResearch. The protocol allows the leverage of up to 40x, and remains decentralized.

Altcoin Price Discovery Still Lacks Balance

Kaiko (July 2025) analysis revealed that the gap is increasing. Markets in Bitcoin remain profound and effective. In the case of altcoins, offshore trading pairs are also overly dependent. Top 10 Liquidity 64% of total liquidity. One of the traders called Beyoglu posted a story on the same thread. According to him, a sharp wick on Dolomite melted away his position. It illustrates the negative impact of non-uniform pricing on traders.

Offshore exchanges have come under the scrutiny of regulators. This drives traders to less stable markets. The statement of Arthur requires innovation and not restriction. He desires a more superior location where he will get fair prices. Hybrid solutions might have an openness of DeFi and speed of the CEX.

Prospect: Reform or Fragmentation

Analysts believe that new DeFi protocols will be able to rival CEXs in the near future. When these platforms go to greater liquidity, then price discovery can stabilize. Fragmentation can go on unless projects remain isolated. The industry needs to seek common liquidity channels. Altcoin investors are still vulnerable without reform. Prices can also remain fluctuating and manipulations can increase. However, this is a problem that can be solved to the community. The message of Arthur marks a new point in the crypto trading. The market has to change to secure fairness and growth.