Bitcoins can exist without exchanges, but would you support the argument that the existence of exchanges are among the factors facilitating the popularity and accessibility that people have to bitcoins?
The popularity of Bitcoin has a lot to do with centralized exchanges. Centralized exchanges do not need to understand the operating principles of Bitcoin, white papers, smart contracts and codes. The reason why I say this is that the first reason is that everyone gets in touch with Bitcoin, and the most important thing is that everyone says that trading Bitcoin can make a lot of money. The threshold of the second centralized exchange is relatively low, easy to operate, similar to the stock market, and it will never stop. The third reason is that their wish of getting rich overnight can be realized here. To sum up: Bitcoin is becoming more and more popular, and more and more people know about it.