DEXs Break Records, Strengthen Positions Amid CEX Decline in Q2
Date: 2025-07-18 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: BUSINESS
According to CoinGecko analytics, decentralized exchanges recorded a ratio of 0.23 to centralized ones in Q2, and their total trading volume reached $876.3 billion. For comparison, CEX lost almost a third of its turnover over the same period and stopped at $3.9 trillion. Against this background, interest in decentralized platforms is growing, which is confirmed by the decline in spot volumes on CEX for the second quarter in a row.
Among the leaders of decentralized trading, PancakeSwap stood out in particular, having managed to outpace such giants as Ethereum and Solana, thanks to close cooperation with Binance Alpha. The platform showed impressive growth — more than 539%, bringing the turnover to $392.6 billion.
In the DEX derivatives market, Hyperliquid confidently holds a dominant position, covering 72.7% of this segment and showing a quarterly turnover of $653.2 billion. Such indicators brought Hyperliquid to the top 8 largest global derivatives platforms, taking into account both centralized and decentralized solutions.
One of the notable events was the record market share of DEX — in May, it reached 25% relative to CEX. This indicates a growing interest of traders in more flexible and transparent platforms that allow better control over operations and avoid strict centralized restrictions.
The overall market growth in Q2 is also impressive — the capitalization of cryptocurrencies increased by 24% and amounted to $3.5 trillion. Bitcoin stands out in particular: for the first time in history, it has surpassed the $100,000 mark and taken a dominant position with a 62.1% share of the market. While Bitcoin was strengthening its position, Ethereum, although it showed growth from $1,805 to $2,488, has not yet returned to its January highs. However, activity in the Ethereum network remained high - the number of transactions grew, and the average gas fee decreased to 3.5 Gwei.
July 16 was a landmark day for Ethereum: spot ETFs for the asset received record investments of $726.74 million in a day, and the rate exceeded the $3,400 level. Thanks to this, Ethereum strengthened its position in the world ranking and took 26th place in capitalization among all assets.
Among the key drivers of the quarter, analysts highlight the Circle IPO, which was oversubscribed 25 times. The company's shares jumped 864.5% to a peak of $299 per share. Circle's success has spurred interest from other major players such as Kraken, Gemini, and Grayscale, who are also considering going public.
Thus, Q2 2025 has proven that interest in decentralized solutions is growing, and traders increasingly value flexibility and control over their assets.
