on the crypto
Trading volumes are increasing on Uniswap and other decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges, challenging established venues like Coinbase. At the same time, fees and congestion on the Ethereum blockchain are increasing - here there quotation in real time.
The rise of the DEX
Uniswap, a semi-automated platform that brings together buyers and sellers of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, saw its trading volume soar to $ 953,59 million in Sept. 1 data, a gain ten times higher than that of July, according to the uniswap.info website.
The 24-hour trading volume exceeded $ 50 billion, at least XNUMX% higher than the daily trading volumes seen on Coinbase Pro, the largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange based in the United States.
The rise of decentralized exchanges, or DEXs, represents a new chapter in this year's boom in decentralized finance. The rapidly growing ecosystem, known as DeFi, consists of automated lending and trading platforms built on distributed computing networks such as Ethereum, using open source software and programmable cryptocurrencies. DEXs aim to provide more efficient and less expensive ways to conduct transactions currently handled by traditional banks and exchanges.
"Flippening"
“Flippening” is crypto jargon used to denote the hypothetical moment when a blockchain or digital asset trend outstrips another. The use of Uniswap has grown so rapidly that it has taken the top spot among paying applications built on the Ethereum network, where most of the DeFi development is taking place.
Total blocked value in DeFi applications, the most common metric for measuring activity, has increased 13 times this year to about $ 9,2 billion, according to Defi Pulse. Uniswap has now moved to # 1,7 in this metric, with $ 11,6 billion in total blocked value, while the overall decentralized exchange volumes nearly tripled in August to $ XNUMX billion from July levels.
Uniswap traders have paid $ 5 million (10.805 ETH) in transaction fees in the past 24 hours, according to etherscan.io. That's more than double the fees paid for the dollar-linked stablecoin tether (USDT), which had been the main contributor so far, according to ethgasstation.info.
An existential threat to centralized exchanges
Uniswap is designed to be more customizable than centralized exchanges like Coinbase. Instead of listing specific assets available for trading on the platform, traders can choose and list the tokens they wish to trade in; currently the platform boasts more than 6.020.
DeFi has grown so fast that centralized exchanges from Binance to FTX have rushed to launch indices - and new trading contracts like futures and perpetual swaps linked to those indices - to give investors a way to bet on the growth of an industry segment. .
But some analysts believe DEXs could pose a more existential threat to centralized exchanges. Currently, there is nothing that suggests a possible turnaround in the dynamics that are favoring DEX.
