Decentralized Exchanges On The Rise
In the last weeks and months during the general market recovery, something interesting happened: The DEX to CEX spot trading volume spiked, reaching 14% once again; that doesn’t sound much, but is together with the spike in May 2023 the highest it ever was:
Here is the graph for the overall DEX volume of the last ~5 years, which reached $200 billion in March 2024 and around ~$150 billion in July 2024:
Why Decentralized Exchanges Are So Important
The original idea of the Cypherpunk movement was to create decentralized solutions, both, cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications, that are beyond central control, that promote the freedom of the individual, and that protect privacy.
Unfortunately, this idea got seemingly lost over the last years - hence my excitement to see this positive development when it comes to DEXs.
‘Not your keys, not your coins’ is more than just a sarcastic meme. It is the truth, even if it is not about (fraudulent) misbehavior of CEXs, per se. Lockups and long waiting times for withdrawals, downtimes of the CEX itself, are experienced even on the ‘most legit’ exchanges out there, something that won’t happen when using a DEX.
Self-custody empowers cryptocurrency holders to have full autonomy over their investments and is the biggest advantage of DEXs over CEXs - use it!
Omnichain DEXs: Trade Crypto-Assets From Different Blockchains
Omnichain DEXs aim to connect various blockchain ecosystems, allowing assets to move freely between different chains without the need for traditional bridges or centralized exchanges. This means you could, for instance, trade assets from Solana directly for assets on Ethereum without having to go through multiple steps or trust third-party services.
Having this interoperability enables an omnichain DEX to perform faster and cheaper cross-chain transactions than it is possible via regular bridges or CEXs, which also leads to a great user experience.
For the tokens and projects itself that are being traded on such omnichain DEXs have the advantage that tokens from one ecosystem will be available to other blockchain ecosystems and its users as well.
Dexalot Omnichain DEX: Own Your Trade
Dexalot, for whom I am working as an official ambassador, is such an up-and-coming omnichain DEX that is already operating on Avalanche, Arbitrum & Base, with more available chains to come over the next months.
It is facilitating a CLOB (Central Limit Order Book) and offers three different trading options:
1. Simple Swap for quick single-click trades (retail-focused)
2. Order Book for semi-pros or pros who want more control over their trades
3. APIs for sophisticated traders
Using Dexalot does not require KYC and your funds are always under your control. While the level of decentralization at Dexalot is currently still semi, Tim Shan from the Dexalot team told me that this is about to change:
“The more decentralization, the better from our perspective. But you need to do it thoughtfully and not rush to decentralization just for the sake of it. For us, we are not permissionless yet, because we simply couldn’t have built as easily or as fast if we were permissionless over the last 3 years. But the intention is to become permissionless, which we are targeting early next year.” - Tim Shan
As stated in the beginning of this article, the DEX trading volumes as well as the DEX to CEX trading volume ratio are surging again, making it clear that more people are using CEXs now.
While Dexalot is still in its early stages, the trading volume grew considerably this summer, with the trading volume ATH being $50 million per day so far:
The ambitious team has big plans in order to continue this growth:
“This summer, we started to develop our custom VM that could potentially achieve 10-15x speed and 100x throughput improvements. We hope to have this ready in about 8-12 months. We’re also looking to integrate Dexalot to a lot more chains. Currently we are targeting another 6-8 chains by early next year.” - Tim Shan
So, if you are looking for an omnichain DEX you can try out right now, look no further!
Conclusion: The Age Of Decentralization Has Just Begun
While DeFi platforms and DEXs have been around for some time now, the time for these applications is yet to come. At least that should be the hope of any market participant who is truly in favor of change.
DEXs can be used anonymously, most CEXs not.
DEXs don't control your funds, but CEXs do.
DEXs don't have downtimes, CEXs all the time.
DEXs are freedom. CEXs the new banks.
It's up to you!
Dexalot Link List:
Website: https://dexalot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dexalot
Telegram: https://t.me/dexalot
Discord: https://discord.gg/S4NP9w7Xwn
Medium: https://medium.com/dexalot
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCu7_vWv4oMfI5QnGakArA
GitHub: https://github.com/dexalot
Litepaper: https://dexalot.com/docs/DEXALOT-Litepaper.pdf
Articles: https://medium.com/dexalot
Tutorials: https://medium.com/dexalot