Crypto Exchanges: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which crypto exchange leads the category in valid recommendation coverage?
• Which brands recorded the largest coverage gains and declines since May 2026?

Kraken led the category in valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 at 78.2%, ahead of Binance at 62.6%, a gap of 15.6 percentage points to the next brand. Kraken's coverage rose from 41.2% in May 2026 to 78.2% in October 2026, an increase of 37.0 percentage points.

Across the full May 2026-to-October 2026 series, Crypto.com and Binance each recorded a cumulative increase of roughly 33 points in valid recommendation coverage, with Crypto.com rising from 24.0% in May 2026 to 57.8% in October 2026, up 33.8 points, and Binance rising from 29.2% to 62.6% over the same period, up 33.4 points. Robinhood recorded the largest cumulative decline, falling from 19.6% in May 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026, a drop of 19.6 points.

October 2026 itself showed significant month-over-month increases for four brands. Binance, Crypto.com, Gemini, and Kraken each recorded a significant month-over-month increase in valid recommendation coverage, with Kraken's increase the largest of the month, up 14.3 percentage points from 63.9% in September 2026 to 78.2% in October 2026 and Binance up 14.5 points from 48.1% to 62.6% over the same month. Uniswap and Uphold held roughly stable month-over-month: Uniswap moved from 11.5% to 13.4% and Uphold's monthly streak of increases broke slightly, moving from 18.3% in September 2026 to 18.1% in October 2026. PayPal, Pionex.US, and Robinhood, all tracked at baseline, recorded no valid recommendation coverage in October 2026.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in October 2026 and produced 673 qualified observations after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. All six families were represented in both May 2026 and October 2026. July 2026, August 2026, and September 2026 also recorded breadth of six.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Crypto Exchanges

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many prompt observations qualified for the October 2026 public benchmark?
• What is the difference between the raw collection and the qualified public denominator?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The funnel below shows how the October 2026 public denominator was reached, alongside the May 2026 baseline for context.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. Link AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• How does Kraken's lead over Binance break down across presence, coverage, top-three, and rank-one rates?
• What do the placement and sentiment columns reveal beyond basic recommendation coverage?

This table is the primary current-month benchmark view.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the AI answer, whether recommended, compared, or merely mentioned.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a recommendation shortlist, the benchmark's primary metric.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the first three recommendation positions.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the single first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive mentions minus negative mentions as a share of all sentiment-bearing mentions.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Note: PayPal and Robinhood were tracked in May 2026 but recorded no valid recommendation coverage in July, August, September, or October 2026, so they do not appear in the current standings. Coinbase was also tracked at baseline but is not part of current-period brand tracking.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which crypto exchanges rose or declined most in valid recommendation coverage since the May 2026 baseline?
• How did Kraken's presence and top-three rates shift alongside its coverage gain?

Nine of the ten tracked brands recorded significant baseline-to-current movement. Binance, Crypto.com, Gemini, Kraken, Uniswap, and Uphold all rose significantly, while PayPal, Pionex.US, and Robinhood all declined significantly. Uphold's increase was the smallest significant rise at 13.0 points.

Largest Increase: Kraken

Kraken recorded the largest cumulative increase in valid recommendation coverage between May 2026 and October 2026, rising from 41.2% to 78.2%, up 37.0 percentage points, and 78.2% is also the highest coverage figure recorded by any tracked brand across the series. Kraken's presence rate moved from 48.3% in May 2026 to 98.1% in October 2026, and its top-three rate rose from 30.9% to 72.7% over the same period.

Largest Decline: Robinhood

Robinhood recorded the largest cumulative decline in valid recommendation coverage, falling from 19.6% in May 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026, a drop of 19.6 percentage points. Robinhood was tracked at baseline but recorded no valid recommendation coverage in July, August, September, or October 2026.

Category Leader: Kraken

Kraken remained the leader for valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 at 78.2%, up 14.3 percentage points from 63.9% in September 2026. Kraken also held the highest top-three rate at 72.7% in October 2026 and the highest rank-one rate at 32.5%, compared with 47.0% and 20.0% respectively in September 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How do top-three and rank-one rates differentiate the leading exchanges beyond raw coverage?
• Where did brands with similar coverage momentum diverge in first-position recommendations?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The table below shows top-three and rank-one rates for the leading brands.

Kraken led on both top-three and rank-one placement in October 2026, ahead of the next brand on each measure. Close coverage can still hide very different first-position rates: Crypto.com and Binance carried similar coverage momentum across the series, but their October 2026 rank-one rates diverged by 9.1 points even as their coverage gap narrowed.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent classes held qualified observations in October 2026?
• What happened to the pricing and comparison classes compared with May 2026?

In October 2026, all qualified observations fell into the discovery and consideration class. The comparison and pricing and cost classes contained no qualified observations, down from May 2026 when those classes held meaningful counts.

The current public series measures only the brand recommendation class of discovery for October 2026 and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing and comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• Which exchange has led valid recommendation coverage across every recorded measurement?
• How much has the leader's coverage moved between each measurement period?

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What does source presence in the benchmark show about the information environment behind AI recommendations?
• How should readers interpret citations relative to the recommendation outcomes?

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment, not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often across AI platform responses in October 2026?
• Which tracked exchanges' own domains appeared among the top cited sources?
• How concentrated are citations across the top domains versus the long tail?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, 6,347 citations were observed spanning 962 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed: the top 10 domains account for a combined 34.2% of all citations, and no single domain exceeds 4.4%, leaving the remaining 952 domains to absorb roughly two-thirds of cited sources. Three tracked brands' own domains appear in the top 10: kraken.com at rank 2, binance.com at rank 6, and crypto.com at rank 9, all cited across every canonical platform family. Financial-information and review-style sites (investopedia.com, nerdwallet.com, finance.yahoo.com) and general community or content platforms (youtube.com, reddit.com) together account for most of the remaining top-10 share.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, private or sponsored channels, or causality from a metric movement alone.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how often brands appear and are recommended across major AI and search surfaces, providing a neutral industry-level view of AI-driven discovery. The index covers six canonical surface families: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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