Source: iStock/Pogonici

After leading crypto exchange Binance scared the market of altcoins by delisting four tokens last week, a new research showed that at least seven major exchanges have added more tokens than removed this year.

Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex , which is 40th among exchanges by 24 hour trading volume (USD 59 million, as of October 16,) is an exception here.

Since January 2017 until now, the exchange has cut its number of listed coins from 93 to 54 - almost in half, according to the research by Diar, a weekly cryptocurrency publication. Only within 2018, the platform has added 6 coins, while it has removed 29 of them - a whopping net of 23 less coins in total, the only cryptocurrency exchange to come close to the end of the year with less coins than it started out with.

According to the report, ever since Circle, a crypto startup backed by investment bank Goldman Sachs,acquired Poloniex the exchange has delisted 29 cryptocurrencies. From January 2017 onwards, the exchange has only added 16 coins in total, removing 54.

In the other corner is exchange HitBTC, which has welcomed a net of 198 cryptocurrencies within this year. More precisely, the exchange has added 241 coins and removed 43 of them - as Diar puts it, this is “highly indicating a low level of due diligence on projects.” Other exchanges are meeting in the middle: Bittrex has a net of 11 additions this year, Binance has 54 new coins and removed 4 existing ones, while OKEx is in the upper corner with 186 additions and 6 removals.

Source: Diar

Therefore, only Poloniex were slowing down with their additions, presumably due to a different orientation thanks to its new owner, Circle. And although Binance’s now infamous delisting of four coins sent their prices on a downward spiral, the exchange has stated that this is due to these coins not meeting quality requirements.

The bear market is not slowing the exchanges down in other matters either. As Cryptonews.com reported, Binance has launched a Ugandan chapter yesterday in a move towards crypto-fiat trading - something the exchange has not offered in its other iterations yet. Circle, Coinbase and OKEx are also among the companies now offering crypto baskets in an attempt to simplify cryptocurrency trading to newcomers.