Decentralized exchanges, or DEXs, saw their highest-ever market share in spot crypto volume as trading on their centralized counterparts such as Binance declined in the second quarter of the year, CoinGecko reported.
Among centralized exchanges (CEXs), Binance held onto the top place in spot trading market share, even though its quarterly volume dropped to $1.47 trillion from over $2 trillion, the report said. Crypto.com endured even steeper decrease losing 61% of its volume through the quarter. Coinbase also booked less volume.
The declines for CEXs happened as bitcoin (BTC) spiked to a fresh all-time record, which usually bolsters trading appetite.
Spot trading volume on DEXs surged to $876.3 billion, rising over 25% from the previous quarter, the report noted. Meanwhile, centralized exchanges (CEXes) saw a sharp pullback, with spot volume across the top platforms falling nearly 28% to $3.9 trillion.
This means the DEX-to-CEX trading volume ratio jumped to a record high 0.23, perhaps pointing to a growing investor demand for trading directly on-chain.
The standout was PancakeSwap, which became the largest DEX by volume after growing more than fivefold quarter-over-quarter. The exchange processed over $392 billion in trades, accounting for nearly half of all DEX activity. The spike follows Binance’s launch of Binance Alpha in May, which began routing trades through PancakeSwap and helped elevate BNB Smart Chain above Ethereum, Base, and Solana as the most-used blockchain.
Perpetuals trading on DEXs also hit a record, with $898 billion traded during the quarter and Hyperliquid (HYPE) dominating the space with nearly 73% of market share, per the report.
