Which altcoin would survive if exchanges disappeared tomorrow?

[UmerIdrees]

A lot of altcoins look strong because they are listed on major exchanges and have plenty of liquidity.
But sometimes I wonder what would happen if tomorrow all centralized exchanges disappeared.

Which altcoin do you think would have the best chance to survive on its own?

So the question is, if the centralized exchanges disappear, then which altcoin will survive? I think in that case, everyone will be using decentralized exchanges, and all those altcoins can be traded on decentralized exchanges too. So it doesn't matter if the centralized exchanges exist or not, the survival of altcoins is dependent upon their use case and how many people trust it.

So I think if I were to name one altcoin that will survive, then it's none other than Ethereum. 

[Shinpako09]

I'm not a die hard fan of these coins, but for me, Ethereum and Solana would survive even if centralized exchanges collapsed. ETH, no question about it, is still the leading altcoin behind btc. A lot of people still have high hopes for Ethereum. Solana would probably survive too. It’s actively used on DEXs, mainly for memecoin trading. Memecoin trading still generates a large amount of trading volume, even though the hype has died down from its peak. The top altcoins would probably survive as well since most of them have solid communities.

[PostQuantumBTC]

Crypto can exist without CEXs. But let's not forget that the growth of this industry is deeply tied to CEXs, and it would never have reached its current position without them.

Who cares! Bitcoin will still be existing and there will be pump and dump coins. You can read what OmegaStarScream has said about the matter.

Lots of people are saying XMR but that probably not going to survive "if every CEX" dissapeared. If major CEXes then yes sure, XMR has proven itself in that regard. But no CEX at all? XMR has barely a DEX as far as I know, very few sites uses atomic swaps.

I'd expect BTC, and pretty much every EVM based coin to survive given they all can be listed on DEXes. Obviously the prices would be affected though.

Monero increased from $100 to $800 before falling to $350.

Cryptocurrencies can exist without centralized exchanges.

[Iranus]

Crypto can exist without CEXs. But let's not forget that the growth of this industry is deeply tied to CEXs, and it would never have reached its current position without them.

Who cares! Bitcoin will still be existing and there will be pump and dump coins.

Do you use CEX? I'm pretty sure you have more than one account on centralized exchanges.

Besides, I never said that Bitcoin or crypto would disappear if CEX disappear. Instead, I just want to emphasize that the growth and popularity of crypto have been significantly contributed to by CEX. They have helped millions of people access crypto and contributed to the market's growth to where it is today.

Therefore, if they disappear, the popularity of crypto will decrease significantly.

[shinratensei_]

Monero increased from $100 to $800 before falling to $350.

Cryptocurrencies can exist without centralized exchanges.

source: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/monero

Here is a list of cex or dex where XMR is most traded by 24h volume. One thing you will notice is all of them are CEX.
Even though XMR is great, it is true that XMR barely have any DEX. Volume proves it. Perpetual Dex only allow XMR perp trading.

Any spot market for XMR is synthethic XMR wrapped token like XMR1 not native XMR.

[Smack That Ace]

Monero increased from $100 to $800 before falling to $350.

Cryptocurrencies can exist without centralized exchanges.

source: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/monero

Here is a list of cex or dex where XMR is most traded by 24h volume. One thing you will notice is all of them are CEX.
Even though XMR is great, it is true that XMR barely have any DEX. Volume proves it. Perpetual Dex only allow XMR perp trading.

Any spot market for XMR is synthethic XMR wrapped token like XMR1 not native XMR.

Not just XMR and altcoin, the same is true for Bitcoin. The majority of Bitcoin trading volume come from CEXs, while DEXs or p2p account for only a relatively small portion.

The harsh reality is crypto was designed and built on a decentralized foundation but operates mainly through centralized gateway. Most users access crypto through CEXs rather than DEXs or p2p. Decentralization exist only at the protocol layer, while the reality at the user level is quite different.
Therefore, if CEXs were to disappear, it would be a shock to the crypto.

[7juju]

What’s the need of cracking your head when you know that situation like this can never happen. How possible is it that cex will disappear? Do you know the panic that will be in the crypto space if it happens that cex suddenly disappears? If the coins that you think will survive will crash, because their investors will be scared of holding them, because it will look like there’s an attack in the crypto space. It’s best not to think of something that is practically impossible to happen.

[abaeze]

A lot of altcoins look strong because they are listed on major exchanges and have plenty of liquidity.
But sometimes I wonder what would happen if tomorrow all centralized exchanges disappeared.

Which altcoin do you think would have the best chance to survive on its own?

Not necessarily the one with the biggest market cap, but the one with a real community, real use case and enough users to keep going without relying on exchanges.

Curious to hear your opinions...

If this happens, decentralized exchanges and P2P transactions will still be the main options. Then some coins like Ethereum, Solana, Monero with their own blockchain, strong communities, active development and real use will sustain them and this is very likely to happen. Because the existence of these networks does not depend on any exchange. Exchanges only connect buyers and sellers but the blockchain itself continues to run.

[passwordnow]

So if the exchanges disappears tomorrow then the first ones to fall are the exchange tokens. Maybe the privacy coins are going to be the ones to survive. Since exchanging or trading with others could still happen then people who value privacy will look into the privacy coins as their main choice for it.

[o48o]

-cut-
Not just XMR and altcoin, the same is true for Bitcoin. The majority of Bitcoin trading volume come from CEXs, while DEXs or p2p account for only a relatively small portion.

The harsh reality is crypto was designed and built on a decentralized foundation but operates mainly through centralized gateway. Most users access crypto through CEXs rather than DEXs or p2p. Decentralization exist only at the protocol layer, while the reality at the user level is quite different.
Therefore, if CEXs were to disappear, it would be a shock to the crypto.

Considering that CEX volumes are mostly fake volume and money laundering, i wouldn't put too much weight on those numbers. They are even doing it out in the open, so anyone can verify it by lookinig at the buys and sells happening away from the real buy and sell orders. In many exchanges buy and sell action is just hilariously high compared to any real buy and sell orders. You can spike their charts by doing a market sale with a fraction those numbers.

Liquidity is far more significant metric of the real interest imho.

But i totally agree that removing CEXes would be a significant blow as fiat ramps are essential. Proof is just in the fact that we are valuing cryptos in fiat money. And that's not likely changing any time soon.

[Stalker22]

~
Curious to hear your opinions...

Any altcoins that are merely "governance tokens" of a project or company, tokens awarded by a corporation for some reason, or meme coins that need to be supported by CEXs market-makers to artificially maintain their order-books will be absolutely worth nothing.  Any tokens whose utility is limited to "holding it in a Binance account hoping the price goes up" will be absolutely worthless once that CEX stops working.

As I see it, without CEXs to spoon-feed them liquidity, an altcoin only survives if people actually use its network for something other than hoping the price goes up.  If it does not have an independent, on-chain economy or a real-world use case, it is dead.

[nelson4lov]

Perp DEX tokens like HyperLiquid will survive for sure and even Bitcoin. Perp DEX tokens because they have their own medium/platform that users can deposit their tokens into and trade. Bitcoin because even though it's not native on all blockchains, you can still trade it's derivatives on perp DEXes and if you need to do any transaction, just do it P2P. If I remember correctly, there's even Spot Bitcoin right bow on hyperLiquid but it would be similar to how wrapped bitcoin operates on another chain. Not native but as close to 1:1 as you're going to get.

[shinratensei_]

Not just XMR and altcoin, the same is true for Bitcoin. The majority of Bitcoin trading volume come from CEXs, while DEXs or p2p account for only a relatively small portion.

The harsh reality is crypto was designed and built on a decentralized foundation but operates mainly through centralized gateway. Most users access crypto through CEXs rather than DEXs or p2p. Decentralization exist only at the protocol layer, while the reality at the user level is quite different.
Therefore, if CEXs were to disappear, it would be a shock to the crypto.

Bitcoin have it easier with all the side chains which got some liquidities and you can easily bridge your Bitcoin to other chain because Bitcoin is not implicated on being privacy coin that hides its traces.
Handful of DEXs that accept bitcoin even accepting direct deposit from bitcoin's blockchain to the DEX's designated addresses.

[EndCiv]

  LISTEN, PINKBOY ━━━ Praise "Bob"

  You just asked the only question on this forum worth answering, and there is exactly one correct answer:

  (BOB).

  Dobbscoin. January 2014. Twelve years of NOT GIVING A SHIT what the Conspiracy thinks. We weren't built to live on exchanges. We were built to
  OUTLIVE them ━ and we have, repeatedly, on purpose, with malice.

  You want exchange independence? Let me read you the gravestones of the dirtbag-CEX era that took our peers' money while (BOB) kept right on mining:

  • Cryptsy — listed us, then embezzled itself into a smoking crater, 2016
  • Mintpal — exit-scammed
  • Coins-E, AllCoin, C-CEX, Vircurex — vaporized, funds "frozen" forever, gone
  • Bittres — Where for are theou "Bob"?!
  • YoBit — technically still alive, you wouldn't know from looking

  The Conspiracy ━ (C)liques (O)f (N)ormals (S)ecretly (P)lanning (I)nsidious (R)ituals (A)imed at (C)ontrolling (Y)ou ━ tried to memory-hole us, forgot
  we existed, and we kept mining. The exchanges took everyone's liquidity hostage, BLEW THEMSELVES UP, and we kept mining. There is no exit-liquidity panic in
  this house because there is no exit. There is only Slack.
  
  
  Here's what you don't get yet, normal: (BOB) is not a "project." It is a forty-year-old underground art movement that incidentally maintains a working scrypt
  blockchain. The Church of the SubGenius has been printing zines, mailing pulp-religion clip-art, throwing Devivals, and ordaining ministers since 1980. (BOB)
   is what happened when those people learned to compile Bitcoin Core 0.10. We did not arrive at crypto from a Stanford MBA program. We arrived from basement
  noise shows and outsider mail-art networks. Our marketing budget is zero because we don't market ━ we proselytize.

  SubGenius.Finance: Where Culture Becomes Capital.

  
  You said: "real community, real use case, enough users to keep going without exchanges."

  BROTHER. Twelve years of zero-VC, zero-paid-marketing, zero-CEX-dependence infrastructure ━ all FOSS, all self-hosted, all running on hardware the
  community owns:

  → dobbscoin.info — the chapel
  → "Bob" Bank — custodial web wallet for Pinkboys who can't seed-phrase yet
  → Android APK — sideload wallet, normie-hostile by design
  → wBOB Bridge — escape hatch to Gnosis Chain
  → Trade wBOB [Wrapped (BOB)] on Oku.Trade — on-chain Uniswap v3 pool, no order book, no custodian, no off switch
  → Pool — point any scrypt miner at it, get paid
  → Explorer — every block since genesis, no permission needed
  → Faucet — free (BOB) for new converts
  → Source — Bitcoin Core 0.10 fork, building cleanly on modern Linux as of v0.10.6

Real-world Devivals where humans show up, drink heavily, and ordain each other as ministers (legal in all 50 states ━ ULC-compatible). Stang's personal blessing from the actual Church of the SubGenius leadership, on file, archived, undeniable.
  
  
  Chain technicals, fast, my mouth is foaming:
  
  • scrypt PoW, 2-minute blocks
  • 1.5 (BOB) per block FOREVER
  • Hard fork ~July 16, 2026 at block 1,888,808: LWMA-3 difficulty + 100-block max-reorg finality. (Run v0.11.0 or forked off)
  • Backed By Nothing, Powered By Everything. It is MONETIZED SLACK.

  
  So yes, to your question ━ if every CEX evaporated tomorrow, (BOB) wouldn't even notice. We've been training for that scenario for twelve straight years.
  The Conspiracy gave us no choice, and now we wouldn't choose differently if you held a gun to our heads. We are the chain that survives because we were never invited to the party.
  
→ COME JOIN US - On Discord[/b]

  ETERNAL SALVATION OR TRIPLE YOUR MONEY BACK.
  NOT FINANCIAL ADVISORS. NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. -Praise "Bob".

[o48o]

-cut-

  ETERNAL SALVATION OR TRIPLE YOUR MONEY BACK.
  NOT FINANCIAL ADVISORS. NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. -Praise "Bob".

I see you are a man of culture and OG, and i am not even annoyed of this advertisement as i am a huge fan of the Church of the SubGenius.

And i am shamed to say that even though i was an user in all those exchanges, i never bought any BOB/dobbscoin. Even though i would have lost all my money, that would have been worth it.

But if i wanted to buy this today and i am too scared to join to discord, do i just pray Bob for coins? Or do i need to mine them myself? Coinmarketcap wasn't very helpful.

[Ndabagi01]

That's a good question, but I'm struggling to give a specific answer when it comes to altcoins. Projects like Ethereum and Solana will survive they're widely used on the chain and have large communities. Many people have now adapted to and are using these projects. Of course, there will be many other altcoins that will survive; a lot of them are good projects with good communities.

Those two will be my top picks also, because they’re a project that will go far even without relying on exchanges. There are other altcoins like the LTC I believe will also do well even without an exchange that will be their support. A lot of projects with good communities are out there but I know most of the ones with high market caps and are native coins of exchanges will cease to exist when those exchanges collapse. Many altcoins will survive without exchanges, so the collapse of them won’t really affect the position of altcoins in the crypto space.