The cryptocurrency market, including the high-value coins like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), recorded unexpected and highly volatile movements over the past month.
Overall, BTC is down by 6% in the past 30 days while ETH gained 22% in the same timeframe.
While these movements have cost the market billions, data from DefiLlama shows that the Ethereum monthly decentralized exchange volume broke a new record, surpassing $140 billion in August.
The volume surpassed the May 2021 all-time high of $117.6 billion by a significant margin.
Moreover, the increased DEX volume shows robust liquidity and trader confidence despite the market volatility, which triggered massive liquidations.
The strong on-chain engagement not only shows more utility across decentralized finance protocols, but also the potential flow of capital from centralized crypto exchanges to DEXs. This would also hint at interest in altcoins since many low-cap tokens are usually not listed on CEXs.
To support this, the highest volume across DeFi came from the Ethereum-based DEX Uniswap, reaching $76.5 billion over the past 30 days, according to DefiLlama.
Data from CoinMarketCap shows that the altseason index rose from 24 to 58 over the past two months. The indicator suggests that investors and traders have been strongly focused on altcoins rather than Bitcoin.
Suppose the market doesn’t encounter any unexpected macroeconomic tensions. In that case, Ethereum and its fellow altcoins are likely to attract strong interest from confident investors over the coming months, similar to the 2021 altseason.
