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Crypto’s Decentralized Exchanges Had Most Volume in 10 Months Amid U.S. Crackdown in March
Trading volume on DEXs rose to $133.1 billion in March, the third straight monthly increase, according to DefiLlama.
Updated Apr 5, 2023, 6:37 p.m. Published Apr 5, 2023, 6:00 p.m.
Decentralized exchanges had a large jump in cryptocurrency trading volume in March as U.S. regulators went after their centralized counterparts including Kraken, Coinbase and Binance.
Volume on DEXs reached $133.1 billion, the third consecutive monthly increase and the highest monthly total since May, according to DefiLlama data.
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This comes as the crypto industry faces possibly its strongest regulatory pressure yet, with centralized exchanges feeling the brunt of it so far. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission went after Kraken for its staking service, and issued a Wells Notice to Coinbase, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused Binance of evading U.S. law.
That’s led some to speculate crypto traders will shift to DEXs, and the DefiLlama data suggests that could be happening.
Read more: Crypto’s Unfulfilled Dreams Get a Tailwind From U.S. Crackdown on Binance, Coinbase
Also contributing to the rise in DEX trading volume could be the stablecoin crisis where the second-largest by market cap, USDC, lost its peg to the dollar following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in mid-March. USDC has since resumed its close link to $1.
According to research platform, Kaiko, CEXs witnessed a serious lack of liquidity for stablecoin pairs during the depeg, prompting an “unprecedented number” of USDC holders to rely on DEXs for liquidity.
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- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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Coinbase Sees Crypto Recovery Ahead as Liquidity Improves and Fed Rate Cut Odds Climb
The crypto exchange also took note of a so-called AI bubble that continues to go strong and a weaker U.S. dollar.
What to know:
- Coinbase Institutional is seeing a potential December recovery in crypto, citing improving liquidity and a shift in macroeconomic conditions that could favor risk assets like bitcoin.
- The firm's optimism is driven by rising odds of Federal Reserve rate cuts, with markets pricing in a 93% chance easing next week, and improving liquidity conditions.
- Several recent institutional developments, including Vanguard's crypto ETF policy reversal and Bank of America's greenlighting of crypto allocations, have contributed to bitcoin's rebound from recent lows.
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