how often exchanges settle transactions?

[UnorthodoxA]

Suppose that you open an account at an exchange and buy 10 bitcoins. Then the exchange assigns to you an address but keeps the private key. Let say C1, C2, C3, ..., C10 are ten different coins (tether, etc.). In the next 10 hours, you trade these 10 bitcoins for every C_i coins, one per hour. Should we expect by the end of the day we will see my address (the one assigned to me when I opened the account at the exchange) shows up 10 times on the bitcoin blockchain? (In fact, for every transaction, there is one unit of bitcoin flowing out of my account and one C_i flowing in. There must be changes in the blockchain of both coins. I am asking about the bitcoin blockchain. )

Or the exchange handles these trades internally and nothing happens on the blockchain? If latter is the case, then once in a while I should see the exchange makes a huge transaction on the blockchain, right? Is this why we see those many "multi-sender multi-receiver" transactions on the ledger?

[mk4]

Every exchange transaction occurs off-chain when talking about centralized exchanges like Coinbase/Binance; "DEXs" like UniSwap and SushiSwap on the other hand, an actual blockchain transactions occur after every single exchange execution.

And yes, they mostly do huge transactions between their cold storage and hot storage for security purposes.

[Little Mouse]

Or the exchange handles these trades internally and nothing happens on the blockchain? If latter is the case, then once in a while I should see the exchange makes a huge transaction on the blockchain, right? Is this why we see those many "multi-sender multi-receiver" transactions on the ledger?

All the centralize exchanges do off chain tx when we trade, which will not he shown up in blockchain. But when we withdraw fund, on chain tx occurs. And when we deposit in the exchange, most of the exchanges just move the fund almost instantly to a secure wallet.

[BALIK]

Blockchain is not used when you are trading on an exchange. Blockchain is used only for deposits and withdrawals from exchanges.
When you settle a trade in exchange it only changes the digit of your balance and nothing more, so you can trade as many times as you want daily. It will take no more than zero seconds to convert the digit of your balance.
If I speak like a native blockchain speaker, then when you deposit bitcoin to exchange they give you IOU Bitcoin. then you can exchange your IOU's to other's IOU's on that exchange internally.

Blockchain is used when an inter-exchange transaction occurs (wallet to wallet), and that's why confirmation takes time.

[The Cryptovator]

When you are trading on a centralized exchange and Buying an altcoin from there means you are just buying an algorithm that has been implemented internally. This trade or transaction has nothing to do with live blockchain unless you withdraw or deposit funds. Dex is different than a centralized exchange, all transactions on dex happen in the blockchain. When you withdraw from a centralized exchange then the exchange release this coin or token from their custody and transactions become live on the blockchain. That's how centralized exchange works.

[odolvlobo]

When people say that trades are done off-chain, they mean that a trade involves only updating account balances. Nothing is moved. The coins and fiat are moved only when you deposit to or withdraw from the exchange.

[hugeblack]

Everything that happens inside the platform is an update of the database, just as it happens in your bank account where the employee checks everything and updates the database.
When you want to deposit, an address is created for you (or several addresses) linked to your account, and then you can send money to it (writing it on the blockchain) as soon as they get the money, it is sent to cold storage and your database is updated with them.
When you want to withdraw, they check everything and then those coins are sent from their hot storage so that all requests are sent together (your request and account requests at the same moment)

[carlfebz2]

Or the exchange handles these trades internally and nothing happens on the blockchain? If latter is the case, then once in a while I should see the exchange makes a huge transaction on the blockchain, right? Is this why we see those many "multi-sender multi-receiver" transactions on the ledger

Its off-chain transactions and its normal that you cant really see nor able to check out on when those transactions would push through specially if those are happened internally and just like what others been

saying above that they do following those common protocols thats why there would be some slight delay and this is something normal when dealing with centralized platforms but if talking
about blockchain to blockchain transactions then you can eventually check it out.

So better deal and get used to it.

[khaled0111]

For centralized exchanges, the balance you see on your account is just a number in their databases. When you make an exchang, they simply update those numbers accordingly. Nothing happens on-chain.
Decentralized and p2p exchanges' transactions are on-chain and this is why you usually have to pay higher fees and wait longer for a transaction to confirm.

[adzino]

Not really. If you ever used a centralized exchange and made a deposit, check the transaction on the blockchain. As soon as you make the deposit and it has some confirmation, your exchange account gets credited and you will notice that the coins from the wallet you sent to gets moved to another wallet within few seconds. The wallet that receives the coin is the "hot wallet" of the exchange. All coins sent by every users are sent over there. The coins that you see on your exchange account are just numbers, not real coins. If you make 10 different trades, those numbers are changed and adjusted. Once you make a withdrawal request, the exchange checks "the numbers", updates it accordingly and then sends you the coins from the hot wallet. Everything happens over here off chain. That's why you don't see any records of those transaction on the chain.

[dansus021]

some exchange do settle transacation from wallet user to hot wallet when money arrive so when it get confirmed it straight away to hot wallet

but not all of them exchange like binance is different

but from hot wallet to cold wallet i never known  it can be weekly or monthly