In October, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) reached a new all-time high (ATH) in trading volume. This comes amid significant volatility in the crypto market. Let’s take a closer look at these figures.
DEXs Hit an All-Time High (ATH) in Trading Volume in October
Earlier this morning, we looked back at the particularly notable performance of stablecoins amid the uncertainty in the crypto market. Beyond this asset class, another sector performed exceptionally well in October: decentralized exchanges (DEXs).
And for good reason: while the tokens associated with these DEXs did not particularly stand out, trading volumes reached a monthly all-time high (ATH) in October, totaling $614.27 billion:
Monthly DEX Volumes
According to DefiLlama data as of October 31, the cumulative volume of DEXs stood at $11,150 billion. In this regard, it is worth noting that October alone accounted for 5.5% of the all-time volume.
In the protocol rankings, Uniswap (UNI) leads the pack, with nearly $70 billion more in volume than PancakeSwap (CAKE), its closest competitor:
Ranking of the top DEXs by volume
Still on the topic of Uniswap, the platform also hit an all-time high (ATH) in trading volume in October. At nearly $170.9 billion, this accounted for 27.82% of the trading activity generated by all DEXs during the month of October.
As significant as they are, these figures are still not really comparable to the activity of centralized platforms. For Binance, for example, CoinGecko data reports that the spot volume over the past 24 hours was $31.57 billion. In just one day, this is already higher than what Uniswap achieved over the past 7 days.
While some sectors rely heavily on optimism in the crypto market, it is worth noting that DEXs can see their activity surge during both bull and bear markets. Since October saw both a BTC all-time high (ATH) and a major market-wide crash, it makes sense that this volatility has benefited DEXs.
Nevertheless, DEXs can suffer during periods of market uncertainty, as is typically the case during lulls in the middle of a bear market.
