Decentralised Exchanges

Findings

Key Findings - Liquidity and Trading Volumes

Trading activity on decentralized derivatives exchanges is increasingly focusing on the Arbitrum chain. This shift is driven by the launch of more derivatives DEXs on this Layer 2 platform, which offers lower gas fees. Newer DEXs like Hyperliquid and Vertex are surpassing established platforms such as GMX, attracting users with their superior user experience and the anticipated airdrops of their tokens.

Attributing to the recent uptrend in the markets following the easing inflation and the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, the on-chain trading activity has also improved significantly in the last 6 months.

Trading volume on decentralised exchanges recorded the highest monthly volume since November 2021 in March, courtesy of the memecoin frenzy that has taken over in the early stages of the current bull market cycle. However, the trading dominance of decentralized exchanges when compared to centralised exchanges has remained at lower levels this year.

The daily average spot trading volume on DEXs has jumped 110% to $3.50 bn. Meanwhile, the daily average derivatives trading volume has risen by 193% to $3.76bn. The derivatives dominance among the decentralised exchanges currently stands at 52%, whereas the derivatives trading accounts for nearly 70% in the centralised exchange landscape, indicating the nascent stage of the on-chain derivatives market.

Key Findings - Liquidity and Trading Volumes

Among the decentralised exchanges, Solana-based DEXs have been the stand out last month with a surge memecoin mania seeing DEXs, including Orca and Raydium, rise as much as 2000% in average daily volumes in the last six months.