i just did a simple calculation, about 35k bitcoins are traded on GDAX every day. At its current price of $6900 and a trading fee of 0.3%, the exchange puts about $700,000 in its pocket EACH DAY and it is ONLY for bitcoin. After including all other cryptos, this number can go up to more than $2MM. Since the exchange is active 365 days a year, the exchange's annual revenue can reach almost $1bn!!
no matter how the trusted exchange earn, it keeps that they must pay for the whole system manager, security, partners, maintenance and others.
im sure with this transparent transaction, the exchange didn't really get as we expected. also the security is the most vulnerable issue of exchange, keep it is not as simple as we think. keep the security is like keeping their the partners
Considering all of the unseen costs is something very few people do but I feel that it's still safe to say that exchanges are making ludicrous amounts of money. Right now there is still so much potential for competition in terms of service that competition on fees isn't that major. Once software etc improves further to a stage where there can be little improvements then for newcomers to compete they'll only be able to offer lower fees.