CEX (Centralized Exchange)

A centralized exchange, or CEX, is a company-operated platform that matches buyers and sellers, typically holding users’ funds in custody on their behalf. Most large, well-known crypto trading platforms are centralized exchanges, offering fiat on-ramps, order books and customer support that decentralized alternatives generally do not.

Why it matters

Convenience comes with counterparty risk: funds held on a centralized exchange depend on that company’s security practices, solvency and honesty, and history has shown exchanges can be hacked or fail. This is the origin of the common advice to move funds not being actively traded into a self-custodied wallet, since “not your keys, not your coins” describes exactly this custodial risk.

Example

Trading volume and prices reported by centralized exchanges feed into aggregated figures on our markets page.

This is educational information, not financial advice. Coingsty does not recommend buying or selling any asset.