What Exchanges Actually Require at Listing
Most founders think of a listing as a decision an exchange makes once. It isn't. Approval is the start of an ongoing obligation, and the terms of that obligation are measured continuously.
The requirements fall into three categories that every major venue monitors: how much liquidity sits in the book, how tight the prices are, and how consistently the quotes are actually there.
1. A designated market maker
This is the requirement that precedes the others. Tier-1 venues including Binance, Coinbase, Bybit and OKX all run formal market maker programs, and all of them ask projects to name a designated market maker during listing review.
That's why the application stalls for projects that arrive without one. The exchange isn't asking as a formality. It's asking who will be accountable for the depth, spread and uptime numbers it's about to start measuring.
2. Depth commitments
Depth is the volume resting in the order book near the current price, and it's what determines whether a normal trade executes cleanly or moves your price.
Exchanges measure it as the total bid and ask volume within a defined percentage band of the mid price, commonly 1% and 2% on each side. The specific thresholds vary by venue and by the token's tier, but the structure of the requirement is consistent: a minimum amount of resting size, on both sides, within a defined distance of the price.
Binance's market maker scoring on its US entity illustrates how granular this gets. The score weighs maker volume, spread, depth and trading pair weight, with explicit emphasis on whether both bids and offers are present, and higher weighting for orders that stay outstanding for three seconds or longer. Quotes that flicker in and out don't count the same as quotes that are genuinely available to trade against.
3. Spread obligations
The spread is the gap between the best bid and the best ask. It's the most direct measure of what trading a token actually costs, and exchanges cap it.
MEXC's published monitoring criteria give a concrete example of where those caps sit: a bid-ask spread below 2%, alongside daily volume above $50,000 USDT and at least one trade per hour. Fall below those consistently and the token receives a warning designation, after which delisting can follow in as little as three days.
Those specific numbers are MEXC's. Other venues set their own. But the pattern holds across the industry: a spread ceiling, a minimum activity level, and a defined consequence for sustained failure.
4. Uptime standards
Uptime is the requirement founders underestimate most, because it sounds technical rather than commercial.
It measures what percentage of the time your quotes are actually live on the venue. A market maker with excellent depth and spread numbers that goes offline during volatile periods has failed the requirement that matters most, because those are precisely the periods when the book being empty does the most damage.
Exchange market maker programs specify uptime obligations directly. In practice this is why market making is an operational business rather than a software one: maintaining quotes across many venues, continuously, through volatility and infrastructure failures, is a staffing problem before it's an algorithmic one.
What happens when a token falls short
The sequence is consistent across major venues:
Metrics decline below the exchange's thresholds, usually gradually
A warning designation is applied, which is publicly visible to traders and signals the token is under review
A review period follows, during which the project can bring metrics back into range
Delisting if it doesn't
The timelines compress faster than most teams expect. MEXC's published process allows for delisting within days of a sustained failure. And the market reaction runs ahead of the formal decision: a delisting announcement alone can move a token's price sharply, because traders exit ahead of losing the venue.
Binance's mid-2026 delisting round is a useful reference for what triggers this in practice. Six tokens were removed from spot trading following a listing review that cited insufficient development activity, trading volume, network performance and compliance. Volume and market quality sat alongside the project-level factors, not beneath them.
The practical reading
Three things follow from all of this for a project planning a listing:
The market maker conversation happens before the listing application, not after. The exchange will ask.
Coverage costs scale per venue. Every additional exchange means separate depth, separate spread management, and separate uptime, which is the practical argument for listing on fewer venues and managing them properly.
These numbers are monitorable by you, not just by the exchange. Depth, spread and uptime are visible in your own order book. Our guide to reading your own token's order book covers how to check them, and it's the difference between learning about a problem yourself and learning about it from a warning tag.
For the full picture of what happens when these requirements are missed, see why tokens get delisted.
FAQ
Do exchanges require a market maker to list a token?
Tier-1 venues including Binance, Coinbase, Bybit and OKX all run formal market maker programs and ask projects to name a designated market maker during listing review. Applications that arrive without one typically stall at that stage.
What depth do exchanges require?
Thresholds vary by venue and token tier, but depth is generally measured as resting bid and ask volume within 1% and 2% of the mid price, required on both sides of the book. Some programs also weight orders by how long they remain outstanding, so quotes that appear and vanish count for less.
What is an acceptable bid-ask spread for a listed token?
It depends on the venue. MEXC's published criteria use a 2% ceiling alongside a $50,000 daily volume minimum and at least one trade per hour. Other exchanges set their own thresholds, but a sustained wide spread is treated as a market quality failure everywhere.
What is a market maker uptime requirement?
It's the percentage of time a market maker's quotes must be live on the venue. It matters most during volatility, when an absent book does the most damage, which is why exchange programs specify it explicitly rather than leaving it to best effort.
How long does a project have to fix failing metrics?
Less time than most expect. MEXC's published process allows delisting within days of sustained failure. Other venues run longer review periods, but in all cases the market usually reacts to the warning designation before the formal decision arrives.
Are listing requirements the same on every exchange?
No. The specific thresholds differ by venue and by token tier. What's consistent is the structure: a named market maker, minimum depth on both sides near the price, a spread ceiling, a minimum activity level, and uptime obligations, all monitored continuously rather than checked once.