Despite the rapid growth of DEX volumes, CEX domination continues

CEXS

The centralized exchange is dominated by several major players, with Binance far surpassing everything else in the trading volume.

The 24-hour volume recorded on March 25th was around $17 billion, and Binance's trading volume is one order of magnitude higher than any other exchange. Binance offers around 1,868 markets (479 coins) and has a large share of global trading (over 50% of all crypto spot volumes).

Coinbase has recorded $2.8 billion in volume over the last 24 hours, with 431 markets and 289 coins listed. Coinbase has a large volume, but about a sixth of Binance. The US exchange benefits from fiat-on-ramp and institutional customers, but has a small global user base.

Both OKX and BYBIT saw trading volumes of $2.5 billion, while Bitget and MEXC each recorded around $22 billion. In the aggregate, the top 10 CEXSs make up the majority of crypto transactions, with Binance alone consisting between 34% and 60% of the total spot volume for a given day.

CEXS as a group lists thousands of markets, but their listing strategies often vary widely. Exchanges such as Gate.io and Mexc list more than 4,000 markets each.

These exchanges can leverage the long tail of digital assets to increase reported volumes (as active traders guess with many small tokens). In contrast, exchanges like Coinbase come in under 500 pairs and focus on quality and fluidity. Binance (~1,868 Markets) balances. I'll list many coins (including new project launches), but concentrate the volume on some top pairs (such as BTC/USDT).

In general, having more markets can attract niche trading activities. However, the majority of CEXS volumes still come from a handful of top pairs (BTC, ETH, and popular Altcoins and USDT or Fiats, such as Solana and XRP).

Dex

The decentralized exchange has grown very much since 2020. Today's Dex landscape spans multiple chains and trading models (AMM, Aggregators, Order Book Decks). Currently, the top 10 Dexs by Daily Volume include Ethereum-based exchanges for Alternative Layer-1 and Layer 2.

Stabble had the highest trading volume on March 25th, just over $6 billion. The Solana-based Stablecoin Dex/Aggregator focuses on Stablecoin swaps with less slippage. That volume is highly concentrated in USDT/USDC trading, which alone accounts for a volume of around $4.7 billion.

This massive Stablecoin swapping activity was able to stab more than 50% of all Dex volumes on the day it peaked. It claims that it likely contributed in large quantities to achieve the same depth and integration with the Solana ecosystem (Serum/Jupiter Aggregators) using the platform's new liquidity design (97% less liquidity).

Uniswap V3 saw $700 million on March 25th with a volume of $600 million to $700 million. Dex is Ethereum's flagship amm, known for its concentrated liquidity pool. It supports around 909 trading pairs on the mainnet, ranging from major Weth-Stablecoin pools to countless ERC20 token pairs.

Ethereum's Uniswap V3 typically has the largest market share of Ethereum's DEX volume and was the dominant DEX by brand, but that share is currently divided into multiple deployments (ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, etc.).

Why CEXS leads

Unlike CEXS, DEXS's fluidity spreads across many chains. Even the largest DEX (UNISWAP across all networks) typically handles less than $100 million per day per day, significantly lower than CEX's top volume. On average, the total spot volume for DEX is about 10-15% of the total CEX volume. For example, in early 2024, DEXS reached approximately 20% of the intensive exchange volume. This is the highest ratio ever.

This is a major leap from 2022 when Dexs was only about 3% to 5% of the market. Still, there is no single Dex close to the volume of Binance. UNISWAP (all versions combined) is often comparable or exceeded by middle tier CEX like Kraken and Kucoin, but only a fraction of Binance.

You sometimes see the convergence of Dex vs. CEX on a particular day. For example, during the summer 2020 boom, Uniswap's daily volume surpassed Coinbase for the first time. In March 2025, Pancakeswap's multi-chain volume temporarily overtaked Uniswap, reaching around $1.4 billion in 24 hours, reaching Uniswap's $674 million and $14.9 billion versus $8.3 billion over a week. These moments are remarkable, but not the norm. In general, the top CEXS handles the volume of the top DEXS from 5 to 10 times.

One of the advantages of DEXS is its open listing. The number of markets is theoretically unlimited, as anyone can provide liquidity to token pairs. In fact, UniSwap (V3) Ethereum has around 900 active pairs, but including all the long-tailed ERC20 pairs created so far, UNISWAP V2 and V3 count thousands of markets.

Aggregators such as 1 inch and matcha give permissions over tens of thousands of token pairs. This means that the various assets traded on DEXS are huge and often larger than a single CEX. However, DEXS's market share, similar to CEXS, is concentrated in the top pair (usually Stablecoin pairs and Weth/USDC).

CEXS has gotten a head start to build a large user base. Binance is reportedly having over 100 million users, and Coinbase has over 70 million registered users. These platforms offer easy access via web/mobile apps, onboarding Fiat currency, and familiar interfaces (order forms, charts).

In contrast, Dexs needed Web3 wallets and blockchain know-how, historically restricting viewers to more encrypted users. This has changed as wallets and UI improves, but ease of use still supports CEXS. Additionally, many institutional and algorithmic traders work with CEXS via APIs and benefit from established infrastructure and customer support, but use DEX includes new tools (Web3 wallets, on-chain execution, etc.).

This difference in user profiles is converted to volumes. The vast scale of Binance's user base brings huge liquidity and constant trading activity. Even if Dexs offers competitive technology, it needs to be consistently mounted to more users to compete with CEX volumes.

Liquidity creates volume. Binance's order book is very deep (tight bids/question spreads and a large amount of bulk at each price level), meaning that traders can execute large trades with minimal slip. In contrast, early DEX had a small liquidity pool that moved significantly even in medium trades. This discouraged major traders from using DEXS.

However, in many top tokens, DEX trade slippages are comparable to CEX, especially in the Stablecoin pair. Nevertheless, professional traders still prefer CEXS or OTC desks for very large orders. CEXS also consolidates global fluidity. The market order of Coinbase or Kraken pulls from all manufacturers of that book, but Dex trading usually falls into one pool or aggregator route. CEXS is a go-to for high frequencies and very large capacity trading, contributing to an increase in overall volume.

CEXS and DEXS derive volumes from how well they are connected to the wider ecosystem. CEXS benefits from integration with fintech and institutions. Coinbase volume, for example, is boosted by the institutional trading desk and its custody services. Binance's volume comes from not only retail UI, but also from brokers, API traders, and the entire ecosystem (trust wallets, Binance Pay, etc., all funnel users will ultimately participate in the trade).

Dexs, meanwhile, benefits from Defi Composability. Many Dex volumes are facilitated by other smart contracts and protocols that use them under the hood. For example, Defi Lending Protocol could liquidate collateral via UniSwap or the yield optimizer could ease the balance via curves. These programmatic trading increases the volume of DEX without the direct involvement of “human traders.”

Additionally, wallets such as MetaMask and Coinbase wallets have swap capabilities that route through Dex aggregators, attracting retailers who may not realize they are using DEX.

In summary, CEXS generally gains raw volume with established trust, large user pools and powerful trading capabilities, while DEX excels in asset diversity, innovation and unauthorized access. As DEX technology matures, the volume gaps close. With layer 2 scalability, better fluidity and a more user-friendly interface, DEX has dined CEX leads.

Structural shifts like 2020 and 2022 have been observed in what gave permanent footing to what was once the territory of CEX. Dexs is unlikely to completely replace CEXS in the short term, but competitive pressures have forced CEXS to innovate.

Despite the rapid growth of DEX volumes first appeared in encryption, post-CEX domination persists.