Decentralized exchanges have seen a surge in trading volume over the past month, with a total of over $513.5 billion processed in transactions. This daily turnover averaged $15.93 billion, indicating a sustained rise in activity rather than a short-term spike.
If this trend continues, the current monthly rate would annualize to over $6 trillion in trading volume, more than double the average in 2024. The market is becoming increasingly concentrated, with PancakeSwap leading the way with over $67.3 billion in volume over the past seven days, followed by Uniswap at $28.1 billion. Together, these two DEXs accounted for over 89% of all weekly flow, marking the highest level of centralization seen in at least six months.
PancakeSwap’s dominance is attributed to its high throughput and low fees on the BNB Smart Chain, capturing 62.8% of the total volume. In contrast, Uniswap, the primary DEX on Ethereum and Layer 2s, held just over a quarter of the market share at 26.3%.
The gap between these platforms has widened not only in share but also in order flow velocity, with PancakeSwap clearing over $10.3 billion in trades in the last 24 hours, more than double Uniswap’s volume. Smaller platforms like Aerodrome, Fluid, and Curve follow at a significant distance, contributing modest slices of the overall flow.
Ethereum’s share of EVM-based DEX volume has decreased to 13.3% over the past week, as users migrate to cheaper and faster chains like BNB Smart Chain and Polygon. While Ethereum remains dominant for blue-chip DeFi applications, it is becoming increasingly peripheral in day-to-day swap flow, especially during periods of high gas fees.
The growth in DEX activity is not only reflected in transaction value but also in the total number of unique trading addresses, which now exceeds 204.2 million. However, this figure includes address-level duplication and automation, indicating that the user base is narrower than the raw address count might imply.
The current composition of DEX activity raises questions about resilience, diversity, and potential vendor risk, particularly with the overreliance on a few platforms. Mid-tier exchanges like Aerodrome and Fluid offer insights into the driving forces of the DeFi ecosystem, operating on emerging or incentivized chains with liquidity mining campaigns.
Address growth across DEXs continues to be exponential, but quality and engagement metrics lag behind. The coming months will determine whether PancakeSwap’s dominance is temporary or entrenched, as Uniswap v4 introduces new features that could rebalance flows toward Ethereum and its roll-ups.
Overall, decentralized exchanges have reached a critical threshold in both scale and structure, with the potential to surpass traditional trading venues in adjusted volume. The future growth of DEXs will depend on Ethereum reclaiming its role in trustless finance and platform-level competition expanding beyond the current duopoly.