On-chain transactions on decentralised exchanges surge: Chainalysis

Decentralised exchanges (DEXs) have surpassed centralised exchanges (CEXs) in on-chain transaction volume according to new research by Chainalysis.

According to the preview of their upcoming Web3 Report, decentralised exchanges (DEXs) such as Uniswap, SushiSwap, Curve, dYdX and 0x Protocal allow cryptocurrency investors to trade without an intermediary.

"While most CEX transactions happen off-chain on centralised databases and captured on their order books to save on transaction fees, every DEX transaction occurs via smart contracts on-chain. For this reason, as well as the rapid growth of DeFi generally, DEXs now have a confident lead in on-chain transaction volume," the report says.

According to the authors, in the year to April 2022, $224 billion was sent on-chain to DEXs while only $175 billion was sent on-chain to CEXs.

The research shows that the first time CEXs, such as Binance.com and Coinbase.com, supported less than half of on-chain volume occurred in September 2020, and the peak for DEX transaction volume occurred in June of last year with DEXs facilitating over 80 percent of on-chain transaction volume.

“The transaction volumes at centralised and decentralised exchanges are closely correlated with market performance,” the report says.

“DEX and CEX transaction volumes alike skyrocketed in 2021 as cryptocurrency prices again multiplied. But with the recent market slump, the amount sent to both exchange types declined, with CEXs proving slightly more resilient than DEXs in current market conditions.”

Currently 85 percent of decentralised transactions occur on the top five DEXs, which the company claims is as a result of their recent emergence in the market compared to CEXs.

The difference between decentralised and centralised exchange users

Chainalysis claims that there are some minor behavioural differences between CEX and DEX users.

To exemplify the point they profiled the top 10,000 Ethereum (ETH) senders to centralised and to decentralised exchanges.

For DEX users, only seven percent of their funds came from a CEX, while for CEX users 16 percent of their funds came from a CEX.

“This could reflect decentralised exchange users’ preference for self-custody – both personally and when deciding with whom to transact – over third-party custody,” the authors said.

The future potential of DEXs to maintain their lead in on-chain transactions over CEXs depends on a range of factors including their fee structures, and whether they can offer better value pricing than CEXs, how they will fair in the face of increasing regulatory scrutiny and their capacity to shift mainstream attention to favour automation, disintermediation and self-custody.