In brief

  • Decentralized exchanges saw a huge uptick in trading volume during the market crash.
  • Uniswap was responsible for over half of the ETH trading volume.
  • Since then, trading volumes have mostly returned to normal.

Decentralized exchange (DEX) explorer DEXWatch has released a report today, highlighting the state of trading platforms during the past month. DEXs allow people to trade cryptocurrencies with one another without the use of a trusted third party.

DEXs are known for typically having low trading volume due to bad user interface and low liquidity—the amount of crypto available to trade against. But on the two days of the crypto market crash, which followed a sharp drop in the traditional stock market, volumes on DEXs spiked 500%. 

Ethereum DEXs see spike in traffic
Ethereum DEXs see big spike in trading volume. Image: DEXWatch

On March 12, lots more people were trading a lot more money on DEXs. More than 6,600 people made trades that added up to 550,000 ETH, worth around $100 million at the time.

These levels were kept up the following day. On March 13, 7,000 people traded a total of 580,000 ETH, worth around $105 million at the time.

Uniswap is a popular DEX
A lot of the trading volume was on Uniswap. Image: DEXWatch

In particular, there was a huge surge of interest on the Uniswap DEX. It was responsible for nearly half of the trading volume—and unique users—on the first day of the crash. The following day, its share of the market rose to 60%.

Since then, volumes have largely gone back to normal. Is the chaos over?

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