Decentralized exchanges (DEX) registered $179 billion in spot trading volume last month, falling 9% on a monthly basis, while their centralized peers rose roughly 8% during the same period, according to data from DefiLlama and The Block.
The volume ratio between both ecosystems is now 14.8%.
Ethereum reclaims the crown
Despite shrinking volumes, Ethereum took back the spot of blockchain with the most on-chain trading activity, amounting to nearly $52 billion traded last month, roughly 29% of the total.
Meanwhile, Solana’s trading volume fell from the nearly $59 billion registered in July to $41 billion in in August. Arbitrum also lost space, shedding over $3 billion in monthly trading volume.
Binance Smart Chain grew while on-chain trading activity tanked, rising from $17.6 billion to $20.4 billion. Base also added nearly a billion dollars in trading volume, while Polygon, Thorchain, and Optimism witnessed waning interest from traders.
Additionally, Tron managed to snag a spot on the top 10 blockchains by monthly trading volume, reaching $3.2 billion. This is the largest monthly trading volume registered by Tron since May 2022.
This movement is likely tied to the rising popularity of SunPump, a memecoin marketplace deployed on Tron, during mid-August. However, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard created by venture capital fund Hashed, the platform started losing steam on Aug. 29.
Centralized exchanges expand the lead
Although the trading volume from decentralized exchanges fell between the months, centralized exchanges witnessed a growing interest from spot traders. These platforms leaped from $1.12 trillion to $1.21 trillion, with Binance dominating 37% of the volume after growing 11% month on month.
Crypto.com and Bybit also saw significant growth, rising 39% and 14%, respectively. However, their combined volumes amount to just a little over half of Binance’s trading activity in August.
The disparity in trading volumes between the decentralized and centralized trading platforms caused DEX to lose some ground they had conquered in July. The monthly trading volume ratio between these trading avenues fell from 17.5%, the highest in 2024, to 14.8%.
