Decentralized Exchange Volume Rose 103% in September to Record $23.6B Even as Growth Consolidated

Oct 1, 2020 at 21:50 UTCUpdated Oct 2, 2020 at 13:49 UTC.September volume on decentralized exchanges recorded its third consecutive month of doubling the trading volume from the previous month after a 160% rise in August, according to Dune Analytics.

Aggregate trading volume on decentralized exchanges reached $23.6 billion in September from $11.6 billion in August, benefiting from continued speculative interest in decentralized finance applications and assets.

Leading decentralized exchange platform Uniswap reported a 128% volume increase in September, reaching $15.3 billion after topping its August record 10 days into the month, as CoinDesk previously reported.

Growth also benefited from new trading platforms like FTX's Serum launching in September.

Less than two weeks after its launch, Serum reported nearly $50 million in volume, according to data aggregator CoinGecko.

Even though aggregate volume set a new record, only a few decentralized exchanges reported individual growth.

Trading volume on only three platforms - Curve, Uniswap, and 0x - grew by more than 50% since August.

Successful token distributions by Curve and Uniswap are a main driver of sustained growth, Jack Purdy, decentralized finance analyst at Messari, told CoinDesk.

In September, previously popular platform Balancer saw its volume drop 2% while the formerly fast-growing Kyber platform grew by less than 0.5 percent.

The uniquely strong incentives of Uniswap and Curve have "Cannibalized volume from some of the other decentralized exchanges that don't have the same market-making incentives," said Purdy.