CEX dominance persists despite rapid growth in DEX volumes
CEXs
Centralized exchanges are dominated by a few big players, with Binance far outpacing all others in trading volume.
With around $17 billion in 24-hour volume recorded on March 25, Binance’s trading volume is an order of magnitude higher than any other exchange. Binance offers roughly 1,868 markets (479 coins) and captures an outsized share of global trading (routinely 50%+ of all crypto spot volume).
Coinbase recorded $2.8 billion in volume in the past 24 hours, with 431 markets and 289 coins listed. While Coinbase’s volume is large, it is roughly one-sixth of Binance. The US exchange benefits from fiat on-ramps and institutional clientele but has a smaller global user base.
OKX and Bybit both saw $2.5 billion in trading volume, while Bitget and MEXC recorded around $2.20 billion each. In aggregate, the top 10 CEXs account for the vast majority of crypto trading, with Binance alone constituting anywhere between 34% and 60% of total spot volume on any given day.
CEXs as a group list thousands of markets, but their listing strategies often differ significantly. Exchanges like Gate.io and MEXC list more than 4,000 markets each, far more than major regulated exchanges.
These exchanges tap into the long tail of digital assets, which can boost reported volume (as active traders speculate on many small tokens). In contrast, an exchange like Coinbase offers under 500 pairs and focuses on quality and liquidity. Binance (~1,868 markets) strikes a balance – it lists many coins (including new project launches) but also concentrates volume in a few top pairs (BTC/USDT, etc.).
Generally, having more markets can attract niche trading activity. However, the majority of volume on CEXs still comes from a handful of top pairs (BTC, ETH, and popular altcoins like Solana and XRP against USDT or fiat).
DEXs
Decentralized exchanges have grown tremendously since 2020. Today’s DEX landscape spans multiple chains and trading models (AMMs, aggregators, order book DEXs). The top 10 DEXs by daily volume currently include Ethereum-based exchanges and others on alternative Layer-1s and Layer-2s.
Stabble saw the highest trading volume on March 25 — just over $6 billion. The Solana-based stablecoin DEX/aggregator is focused on low-slippage stablecoin swaps. Its volume is highly concentrated in USDT/USDC trades, which alone accounted for roughly $4.7 billion of its volume.
This massive stablecoin swapping activity gave Stabble over 50% of all DEX volume on the days it peaked. The platform’s novel liquidity design (claiming to use 97% less liquidity to achieve the same depth and integration with Solana’s ecosystem (Serum/Jupiter aggregators) likely contributed to its high volume.
Uniswap v3 saw $600 million to $700 million in 24-hour volume on March 25. The DEX is the flagship AMM on Ethereum, known for its concentrated liquidity pools. It supports roughly 909 trading pairs on the mainnet, ranging from major WETH-stablecoin pools to countless ERC20 token pairs.
Uniswap v3 on Ethereum typically has the largest market share of DEX volume on Ethereum and has long been the dominant DEX by brand, though its share is now split across multiple deployments (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, etc.).
Why CEXs lead
Unlike CEXs, liquidity on DEXs is spread across many chains. Even the largest DEX (Uniswap across all networks) typically handles under $1B/day on-chain, significantly lower than top CEX volumes. On average, total DEX spot volume is roughly 10–15% of total CEX volume. For example, in early 2024, DEXs collectively reached roughly 20% of centralized exchange volume — an all-time high ratio.
This is a big leap from 2022, when DEXs were only around 3% to 5% of the market by volume. Still, no single DEX comes close to Binance’s volume. Uniswap (all versions combined) often does $1 billion to $1.5 billion in daily volume, which can rival or exceed a mid-tier CEX like Kraken or KuCoin but is only a fraction of Binance.
We occasionally see DEX vs. CEX convergence on specific days — for instance, during the DeFi Summer 2020 boom, Uniswap’s daily volume surpassed Coinbase’s for the first time. In March 2025, PancakeSwap’s multi-chain volumes briefly overtook Uniswap, hitting around $1.4 billion in 24 hours versus Uniswap’s $674 million and $14.9 billion vs. $8.3 billion over one week. These moments are notable but not the norm; generally, the top CEXs still handle 5x to 10× the volume of the top DEXs.
One advantage of DEXs is open listing — anyone can provide liquidity for any token pair, so the number of markets is theoretically unlimited. In practice, Uniswap (v3) Ethereum has roughly 900 active pairs, but if you include all long-tail ERC20 pairs ever created, Uniswap v2 and v3 count thousands of markets.
Aggregators like 1inch or Matcha can route across tens of thousands of token pairs permissionlessly. This means the variety of assets traded on DEXs is huge, often larger than any single CEX. However, market share on DEXs is more concentrated in the top pairs (typically stablecoin pairs and WETH/USDC, etc.), similar to CEXs.
CEXs have had a head start in building large user bases. Binance reportedly has over 100 million users, and Coinbase has over 70 million registered. These platforms offer easy access via web/mobile apps, fiat currency onboarding, and familiar interfaces (order books, charts) — lowering the barrier for retail traders.
DEXs, by contrast, require a web3 wallet and some blockchain know-how, which historically limited their audience to more crypto-savvy users. This is changing as wallets and UIs improve, but ease of use still favors CEXs. Moreover, many institutional and algorithmic traders operate on CEXs via API, benefiting from established infrastructure and customer support — whereas using a DEX involves new tooling (web3 wallets, on-chain execution, etc.).
This difference in user profile translates to volume: the sheer scale of Binance’s user base results in huge liquidity and constant trading activity. Even if DEXs offer competitive tech, they must consistently onboard more users to rival CEX volume.
Liquidity begets volume. Binance’s order books are extremely deep — tight bid/ask spreads and high volume at each price level — meaning a trader can execute a large trade with minimal slippage. In contrast, early DEXs had small liquidity pools that would move significantly even on moderate trades. This discouraged big traders from using DEXs.
However, for many top tokens, the slippage on a DEX trade is comparable to a CEX, especially on stablecoin pairs. Nonetheless, professional traders still prefer CEXs or OTC desks for very large orders. CEXs also aggregate global liquidity — a market order on Coinbase or Kraken pulls from all makers on that book, whereas a DEX trade typically hits one pool or aggregator route at a time. CEXs remain the go-to for high-frequency and very-large-volume trading, contributing to their higher overall volume.
CEXs and DEXs derive volume from how well they plug into the broader ecosystem. CEXs benefit from integrations with fintech and institutions — e.g., Coinbase volume is boosted by its linkage to institutional trading desks and its custody services; Binance volume comes not just from retail UI but also from brokers, API traders and its entire ecosystem (Trust Wallet, Binance Pay, etc., all funnel users into trading eventually).
DEXs, on the other hand, benefit from DeFi composability — a lot of DEX volume is driven by other smart contracts and protocols using them under the hood. For example, a DeFi lending protocol might liquidate collateral via Uniswap, or a yield optimizer might rebalance through Curve. These programmatic trades increase DEX volume without a “human trader” directly involved.
Additionally, wallets like MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet have swap features that route through DEX aggregators, bringing in retail users who might not even realize they’re using a DEX.
In summary, CEXs generally win on raw volume due to established trust, large user pools, and powerful trading features, whereas DEXs excel in asset variety, innovation, and permissionless access. The gap in volume is closing as DEX technology matures — with Layer-2 scalability, better liquidity, and more user-friendly interfaces, DEXs have eaten into the CEX lead.
We’ve observed structural shifts like the ones in 2020 and 2022 that gave DEXs permanent footholds in what used to be CEX territory. While it’s unlikely that DEXs will completely displace CEXs in the near term, the competitive pressure has also forced CEXs to innovate.
The post CEX dominance persists despite rapid growth in DEX volumes appeared first on CryptoSlate.