Uniswap Hits $2 Trillion in Lifetime Trading Volume, Rivals Major CEXes

Decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap has surpassed $2 trillion in lifetime trading volume, rivaling major centralized exchanges including Coinbase. According to data tracked by a Dune Analytics dashboard curated by Zach Wong, Uniswap’s strategy and operations lead, the $2 trillion milestone was reached around 11:55 a.m. UTC on April 5. The trading volume figure encompasses transactions conducted across various blockchains supporting Uniswap, including Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Celo, BNB Chain, Base, Blast, and the Avalanche Network. 

It’s official: just passed $2T in all-time protocol volume 🦄 pic.twitter.com/gI1b5bL5ZS

— Uniswap Labs 🦄 (@Uniswap) April 5, 2024

Uniswap Passed Second Trillion in Less Than 2 Years

Uniswap, launched in November 2018, initially took 42 months to surpass the $1 trillion trading volume milestone in May 2022. However, it managed to surpass the second trillion mark in less than 24 months, even in the face of increasing competition within the DEX space.As the largest DEX in terms of trading volume, Uniswap has amassed a staggering $21.6 billion in volume over the past week alone, as reported on a Dune Analytics dashboard by Fredrik Haga, one of the platform’s founders. PancakeSwap, a derivative of Uniswap, follows in second place with $9.6 billion in trading volume. Other notable DEXs such as Curve, Balancer, and Trader Joe round out the top five with volumes ranging from $800 million to $1.8 billion.

Uniswap Rivals Major Exchanges

Uniswap’s record transaction volume comes as the platform has emerged as a formidable contender to centralized powerhouses like Binance and Coinbase. According to data from The Block, while Binance leads the pack with its higher peaks in trade volume, Uniswap’s performance tells a story of steady growth and increasing trader confidence in DeFi solutions.Particularly noteworthy is the trend captured in early 2024, where Uniswap’s volume saw a dramatic upswing, closing the gap significantly with that of Coinbase and even shadowing it on occasion. This surge aligns with a broader market movement, suggesting a pivot among investors towards platforms offering direct, wallet-to-wallet trades, and greater autonomy over personal assets. Moreover, the peak in Uniswap’s volume, particularly around March 2024, suggests that in times of heightened activity, traders are increasingly turning to DEXs as viable alternatives to their centralized counterparts. A research study last year also claimed that Uniswap has deeper liquidity in several important crypto trading pairs than even the largest centralized exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase. On the popular trading pair Ethereum against US dollars (USD), Uniswap had 2 times more liquidity than both Binance and Coinbase, the study said. For Ethereum against Bitcoin, Uniswap’s liquidity was three times deeper than Binance and an impressive 4.5 times deeper than Coinbase.