DEX vs. CEX: Uniswap overtakes Coinbase in ethereum trading

Following the theme of our digest today isn’t necessary, just like answering Caroline Elison’s question of what the point of trading on DEX and not FTX is. Nevertheless, despite the abundance of news and investigations around the FTX failure, it is important to highlight today’s event – Uniswap has risen in ethereum volume trading, leaving Coinbase behind, taking a solid 2nd place before Binance.  

First Alex Svanetik, CEO of Nansen, noted this in his Twitter account, then later Hayden Adams, CEO of Uniswap, shared the news. 

Hayden’s statement: “DEX starting to replace CEX? Total ETH/USD (or stables) volume: Binance: $1.9b; Uniswap: $1.1b; Coinbase: $0.6b.”

Uniswap’s lead over Coinbase has reached almost two quarters since the tweets, the stats have changed since then, which you can see here, but Uniswap is still maintaining its position in the ETH/USD pair. By overall trading volume, Coinbase is still ahead of Uniswap, with Binance on top – a clear leader among all exchanges no matter CEX or DEX.

The fallout of FTX has convinced more users to turn to decentralized exchanges, setting an obvious trend. Original data can be found on Dune Analitics. In the last week, trading on DEX was $31B, of which around $20B was accounted for by Uniswap.

The explosion of trading volume on decentralized exchanges began at the same moment when CZ, CEO of Binance, said he was ready to consider a takeover deal of FTX. The next day on Binance’s official page it was publicly announced that the deal was canceled due to the disclosed insolvency of FTX. At the time of the events, Curve’s volume doubled, and Uniswap tripled.