According to estimates, calculated by Bloomberg, the top ten cryptocurrency exchanges are bringing in as much as $3 million per day in profit. Considering that cryptocurrency did not even exist until 2009, profit at that level is absolutely astonishing compared to the historical development of other industries. It is easy enough to understand how cryptocurrency exchanges make their money–by charging fees for users who sell, buy, and withdraw cryptocurrencies. According to an article published by MarketWatch, Global trading revenue generated by cryptocurrency exchanges hit $24.3 billion in 2021 to surpass total revenue generated by traditional stock exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq for the first time ever, according to a report published by financial-services consultancy Opimas. The report estimates that revenue at crypto exchanges increased seven times from the $3.4 billion in sales recorded in 2020 and was 60% higher than the roughly $15.2 billion brought in by traditional securities exchanges. “This is quite a shift from only a year earlier, when the traditional exchanges had revenues four times greater than exchanges of the crypto world,” wrote Suzannah Balluffi, an Opimas analyst who covers the digital asset industry. “The old, venerable names like the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, Deutsche Borse and CME have all been left behind in the dust by crypto startups Binance and Coinbase.”