Analyzing 60 Leading DEXs, 5 Major Trends Worth Following

DEX( decentralized exchanges have experienced explosive growth since the DeFi boom in June 2020, with monthly trading volume increasing 105 times within a year, reaching $203.95 billion. The DEX market initially started on Ethereum and then expanded to multiple public chains such as BSC, Solana, and Avalanche. Currently, DEX on the Ethereum chain still dominates, and the trading volume and locked value of DEX on other public chains still lag behind Ethereum.

DEX mainly includes types such as AMM, cross-chain trading protocols, derivative trading protocols, stablecoin trading protocols, and DEX aggregators. Among them, AMM is the most common type of DEX, and Uniswap is the most well-known representative of AMM.

By analyzing the top 60 DEXs, we have summarized the following 5 key trends:

1. The market share is highly concentrated, with a few DEXs occupying the vast majority of the market;

2. Cross-chain and cross-layer trading protocols are on the rise, accounting for about 1/4 of the top DEX.

3. AMM+NFT becomes a new direction for DEX development;

4. Major public chains have DEXs entering the top ranks, and new public chain DEXs are developing rapidly.

5. Stablecoin trading platforms and derivatives trading platforms have significant growth potential.

Affected by the market downturn, the trading volume of DEX in August decreased by 58.3% compared to January. Against this backdrop, the veteran Ethereum DEX, cross-chain DEX, stablecoin trading protocols, Cosmos ecosystem DEX, and new public chain DEX are several directions worth following.

![Scanning 60 top DEXs, we discovered these 5 trends])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-1589f8b31546dafed9c7bcb0ada6c557.webp(

Current Situation of the DEX Industry

) 1. Trading Volume Analysis

DEX trading can be divided into three categories: spot trading, derivatives trading, and DEX aggregators, with spot trading being the dominant form.

In terms of spot trading, the trading volume in June 2020 was $1.92 billion, reaching a peak of $20.395 billion in May 2021, an increase of 105 times within a year. Since 2022, there has been an overall declining trend, with the trading volume in August being $66.76 billion, a decrease of 58.3% compared to January.

Uniswap and PancakeSwap account for half of the spot trading volume. Uniswap v2, v3, and PancakeSwap have all exceeded 30% in their highest monthly shares.

The spot trading volume ratio of DEX to CEX reached a peak of 16.97% in September 2020 and 25.51% in February 2022. Since February of this year, this ratio has generally declined, standing at 18.49% in August.

In terms of derivatives trading, dYdX holds an absolute dominant position. On September 21, the trading volume of dYdX was $1.38 billion, ranking first among all DEXs. The second place, Kine Protocol, had a trading volume of $270 million, which is only 19.5% of dYdX.

Currently, the derivatives trading market is still monopolized by centralized exchanges, with the trading volume of DEX futures accounting for only 1.4% of that of CEX, and remaining below 3% in the long term.

In terms of DEX aggregators, leading projects include 1inch, Matcha, and OpenOcean. On September 21, 1inch had a 24-hour trading volume of $1.066 million, while OpenOcean had $517,000, indicating a relatively small trading scale.

![Scanning 60 top DEXs, we found these 5 trends]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-2c84439dcb512c3fbfcc2a369d367980.webp(

) 2. Locked Amount Analysis

Currently, there are 5 DEXs with a total locked value exceeding $1 billion, namely Curve, Uniswap, PancakeSwap, Multichain, and Balancer. Among them, both Curve and Uniswap have locked values exceeding $5 billion, dominating the DEX space.

Curve, Uniswap, and PancakeSwap have all entered the top 10 in DeFi locked value, collectively accounting for 25% of the total DeFi locked value.

![Scan of 60 top DEXs, we discovered these 5 trends]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-e695c233203033998a52df04d0e2fcdc.webp(

) 3. Agreement Revenue Analysis

In the top 13 crypto protocols by revenue in the past 7 days, DEXs occupy 6 slots. Among them, Uniswap, PancakeSwap, and GMX generated over $10 million in revenue in 7 days.

Among the 6 DEXs, 3 belong to derivatives trading platforms, namely GMX, dYdX, and Synthetix.

![Scanned 60 top DEXs, we found these 5 trends]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-ad7c7dab73d9e1d42150a09e87f92ebb.webp(

) 4. Main categories of DEX

AMM: is currently the most common type of DEX, represented by the project Uniswap.

Cross-chain trading protocols: combining trading and cross-chain bridge functions, such as Hop Protocol, Multichain, Hashflow, etc.

Derivatives Trading Protocol: including perpetual contracts, options, and synthetic asset trading, represented by projects such as dYdX, GMX, Lyra, Synthetix, etc.

Stablecoin Trading Protocol: Designed specifically for stablecoins like USDT and USDC, Curve is the largest stablecoin trading protocol.

DEX Aggregator: Aggregates information from multiple DEXs to find the optimal trading path for users, such as 1inch, Matcha, etc.

Analysis of the Five Major Trends in the DEX Industry

1. The market share is highly concentrated.

In terms of locked assets and trading volume, a few DEXs occupy the vast majority of market share.

In terms of locked-up volume, among the 60 leading DEXs analyzed:

• There are 5 with a locked amount greater than $1 billion.
• 6 out of 3-10 billion
• 2-3 hundred million has 5
• 15 with 100-200 million USD
• 90 million to 100 million have 9
• There are 20 with less than $50 million

The top 5 DEXs with locked assets exceeding 1 billion USD ### have a total locked amount of 16.36 billion USD, while the 6 DEXs with 300 million to 1 billion USD ( comprise the second tier ) with a total locked amount of 2.55 billion USD, accounting for only 15.5% of the first tier.

In the first tier, both Curve and Uniswap have locked amounts exceeding $5 billion, with their total accounting for 63.5% of the first tier.

In terms of trading volume, data from September 22 shows that only 5 DEXs had a 24-hour trading volume exceeding $100 million. Among them, dYdX and Uniswap v3 had $1.4 billion and $1.25 billion respectively, while the third-ranked Kine Protocol had only $270 million.

There are a total of 30 DEXs with a 24-hour trading volume of over 10 million USD, accounting for 12.5% of the total DEXs listed on CoinMarketCap, reflecting a high concentration of trading volume.

( 2. The share of cross-chain and cross-layer trading protocols is increasing.

Among the 60 major DEXs surveyed, there are a total of 16 cross-chain protocols and cross-layer deployment protocols, accounting for about 1/4.

Cross-chain trading protocols simultaneously possess cross-chain bridge and trading functionalities, such as Hop Protocol, Multichain, Hashflow, etc., supporting trading and asset transfers between multiple chains, including between L1 and L2.

DEX with no cross-chain functionality has become mainstream in multi-chain deployments, including L1 and L2 networks. Among the top ten DEXs by locked value, Curve, Uniswap, SushiSwap, Balancer, dYdX, and Synthetix have all been deployed on L2 networks or are utilizing L2 scaling technologies.

SushiXSwap, launched in partnership between SushiSwap and LayerZero, is the first cross-chain AMM, achieving cross-chain functionality through StarGate and multi-chain liquidity of Sushiswap.

![Scan 60 leading DEXs, we found these 5 trends])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-7215dddad5dfc89a3a904e9c67ab34a5.webp###

( 3. AMM+NFT has become a new trend

AMM+NFT includes two categories: the first is NFT trading platforms based on the AMM mechanism, such as sudoswap; the second is adding NFT trading within AMM, such as Uniswap.

Sudoswap and other AMM-based NFT trading platforms consist of numerous NFT liquidity pools, where LPs can provide liquidity to these pools, innovatively enhancing NFT liquidity.

Leading AMMs like Uniswap are also actively introducing NFT trading. Uniswap has acquired the NFT aggregator Genie and plans to integrate sudoswap to facilitate NFT trading. It is expected that more AMMs will launch NFT trading products in the future.

![Scanning 60 top DEXs, we found these 5 trends])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-90be4eabde5324af50a823b0c8faf263.webp###

( 4. Major public chain DEXs are developing rapidly.

The 60 leading DEXs are from 23 public chains, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, NEAR, Avalanche, and others.

The native DEXs on the Ethereum chain still dominate. Among the top 8 DEXs by locked value, 7 are native Ethereum projects, with a total locked value of $14.88 billion, accounting for 46.8% of the DeFi locked value on the Ethereum chain, which is 2.9 times that of the DeFi locked value on the BNB Chain.

Performance of native DEX on other public chains:

• The locked value of PancakeSwap on BNB Chain is $2.89 billion, ranking 3rd.
• The locked value of VVS Finance on Cronos is $410 million, ranking 9th.
• The GMX locked in Arbitrum amounts to 400 million USD, ranking 10th.

The performance of the new public chain DEXs is outstanding, with six new public chains including Cronos, Arbitrum, DefiChain, Osmosis, Klaytn, and Elrond each having one DEX entering the top 30 in terms of locked value.

DefiChain, Osmosis, THORChain, and Canto are four application chains with built-in DEX, and the last three belong to the Cosmos ecosystem, worth following.

There are 3 DEXs on the Klaytn chain that have entered the top 60 in terms of locked value, demonstrating excellent performance as a new public chain. KlaySwap is the largest DEX on Klaytn, with a locked value of 170 million dollars, ranking 17th.

![Scan of 60 major DEXs, we found these 5 trends])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-0c4d5b033a14af503f11bb6438903a4f.webp###

( 5. The potential of stablecoin and derivatives trading platforms is relatively large.

In the context of a sluggish market, users' tendency to invest in stablecoins and derivatives is rising.

In terms of stablecoins, the off-market prices of USD-pegged stablecoins such as USDT and USDC have surpassed 7 yuan, and recently the returns on holding them have been better than those of ETH and BTC. This may stimulate market demand for stablecoin yield products, such as AMM-based stablecoin trading platforms like Curve and Wombat Exchange.

Curve is the number one DEX in terms of locked assets, offering three liquidity pool combinations with an APR ranging from 6.3% to 15.9%. Curve's locked assets increased by 12.5% in the last 7 days, ranking first among the top 10 projects in DeFi.

Wombat Exchange is a recently popular multi-chain stablecoin trading protocol that uses single-token liquidity pools to enhance capital efficiency, with the main pool's APR ranging between 12% and 15%.

Derivative trading is an important investment strategy in bear markets, with perpetual contracts and options being commonly used hedging tools. Leading derivative trading platforms like dYdX, GMX, and Synthetix all utilize L2 scaling solutions to enhance user experience. The combination of L2 and derivatives is worth following.

![Scanning 60 leading DEXs, we found these 5 trends])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-b009d5c4bdfac81c9212bc55a719f5cf.webp###

Summary

Based on current trends, the following 5 directions are worth following:

1. Established Ethereum DEX ( such as Uniswap, SushiSwap )
2. Cross-chain DEX ( such as Hop, Hashflow )
3. Stablecoin trading protocol ( like Curve )
4. Cosmos ecosystem DEX ( such as Osmosis )
5. New public chain DEX( such as Canto DEX)

The overall supply in the DEX track exceeds demand, and new projects are innovating in areas such as liquidity pools, AMM mechanisms, functional aggregation, products, and customization to compete for market share.

In the context of a sluggish market, 20 DEXs have an Mcap/TVL below 0.2, reflecting undervaluation, including Curve, Wombat Exchange, dYdX, and others. These undervalued DEXs are worth following, but no investment advice is provided at this time.

In the long term, DEX remains an important pillar and entry point for DeFi.