Overview of Seven Major DEX
In the past week, the survival status of decentralized exchanges (DEX) has sparked widespread discussion. Hyperliquid experienced market turbulence due to the “self-destructive arbitrage” of whales leveraging 50 times, resulting in nearly $4 million in losses for its HLP insurance fund after accepting liquidation orders. Meanwhile, GMGN, which flourished during the pump period, has also fallen into a significant predicament. According to data from Dune, the platform’s revenue has plummeted from $2.34 million on January 19 to $74,000 on March 11, a staggering drop of nearly 97%. Concurrently, high KOL marketing expenses, user attrition, and intensified competition from CEX have further raised concerns about GMGN’s future. In light of this, ChainCatcher summarizes the recent revenue situations of seven mainstream DEX for readers’ reference.
Quick Interpretation (No Nonsense, Direct Conclusions)
- Jupiter and PancakeSwap maintain relatively high daily revenues, with stable long-term performance.
- Hyperliquid leads in revenue over the past 24 hours, but has seen a significant drop from historical highs.
- Raydium and Shadow Exchange have experienced a sharp decline in revenue, with notable reductions in market activity.
- Aerodrome and THENA have also suffered severe declines, yet still retain some profitability.
Below is a comparison of the recent 24-hour revenue situations and historical highest daily revenues of several mainstream DEX:
Data Source: Defillama, as of March 12
In-Depth Analysis of Mainstream DEX Status and Trends
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Shadow Exchange
- ✅ Background and Positioning: A native concentrated liquidity layer and exchange deployed on Sonic, supported by the x(3,3) incentive model, aiming to provide an efficient and low-cost trading experience.
- Revenue Data: Historical high of $864.44K, recent 24-hour revenue of $83K, down 90.30%.
- Market Performance: Ranked among the top ten in cryptocurrency revenue over the past 30 days, with stable user activity. The x(3,3) mechanism enhances capital utilization efficiency, and the MEV protection mechanism optimizes trading experiences, providing considerable returns for liquidity providers and traders. The Gems reward system attracts deep participation from the Sonic ecosystem, promoting protocol expansion and demonstrating continuous growth potential.
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Raydium
- ✅ Background and Positioning: A leading AMM DEX in the Solana ecosystem, previously attracting a large user base due to low transaction fees and efficient trading.
- Revenue Data: Historical high of $3.39M, recent 24-hour revenue of only $48K, down 98.57%, with significantly reduced market activity.
- Market Performance: At one point in Q4 2024, it accounted for 61% of SolanaDEX trading volume, yet its TVL was only 39% of Uniswap, indicating active trading but relative liquidity deficiency. The trading volume is heavily reliant on support from Pump.fun, necessitating expansion into new non-meme domains.
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Jupiter
- ✅ Background and Positioning: A leading DEX aggregator in the Solana ecosystem, optimizing the best trading routes and serving as the core pillar of Solana DeFi trading volume.
- Revenue Data: Historical high of $3.13M, recent 24-hour revenue of $329K, down 89.46%, yet maintains relatively high activity compared to other DEX.
- Market Performance: As the DEX with the largest trading volume in the Solana ecosystem, it boasts deep liquidity and high cross-platform integration, leading to low user trading costs. However, it has recently faced allegations of insider trading due to the Libra incident, with no further investigation results available.
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PancakeSwap
- ✅ Background and Positioning: The leading DEX in the BSC ecosystem, maintaining competitiveness through low gas fees, fast transactions, and multi-chain expansion (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, etc.).
- Revenue Data: Historical high of $6.4M, recent 24-hour revenue of $1.11M, down 82.65%, but still maintains high profitability in the DeFi space.
- Market Performance: Thanks to the active BSC ecosystem, PancakeSwap has a wide DeFi user base and continues to expand product functionalities (such as NFTs and staking).
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Hyperliquid
- ✅ Background and Positioning: A decentralized derivatives trading platform in the Arbitrum ecosystem, leveraging an active market-making mechanism to differentiate itself from GMX.
- Revenue Data: Historical high of $4.42M, recent 24-hour revenue of $1.17M, down 73.52%, yet still holds a dominant position in the DeFi derivatives market.
- Market Performance: Attracting traders due to high-leverage trading, Hyperliquid maintains a lead in trading volume and profitability. However, recent whale arbitrage incidents have led users to question its liquidity management mechanisms, resulting in some capital fleeing in a risk-averse manner.
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Aerodrome
- ✅ Background and Positioning: A core DEX in the Base ecosystem, employing a ve(3,3) economic model to incentivize liquidity providers and optimize trading experiences.
- Revenue Data: Historical high of $1.52M, recent 24-hour revenue of $290K, down 80.91%, with a decrease in market liquidity while still maintaining some activity.
- Market Performance: Dominating the Base ecosystem, benefiting from recent signs of recovery in the Base chain, with strong market performance, increasing trading volume, and high community participation.
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THENA
- ✅ Background and Positioning: One of the DEX in the BNB ecosystem, utilizing a ve(3,3) economic model aimed at enhancing the sustainability of liquidity incentives.
- Revenue Data: Historical high of $208.95K, recent 24-hour revenue of $48K, down 77.02%, yet still possesses certain competitiveness in the BSC ecosystem.
- Market Performance: Positioned as a secondary DEX within the BSC ecosystem, facing strong competition from PancakeSwap, yet its ve(3,3) model continues to attract some liquidity. According to site disclosures, THENA is planning to upgrade to version V3, which will introduce “Hooks” functionality, allowing smart contracts to be deployed on specific liquidity pools to execute specific logic during user interactions. This will support advanced order types, complex applications, and customized needs, further enhancing the protocol’s flexibility and functionality.
Currently, the overall trend for decentralized exchanges is a decline in revenue, intensified competition, and structural differentiation. The revenues of mainstream platforms have generally retreated by 70%-98% from historical highs, significantly impacting market activity. Jupiter and PancakeSwap remain at the forefront, boasting high daily revenues and relatively stable long-term performance, maintaining competitiveness through ecological layout and user base. Hyperliquid still occupies a niche in the derivatives market, but concerns over its risk control capabilities have arisen due to whale arbitrage incidents, impacting capital liquidity. Raydium and Shadow Exchange have seen substantial revenue shrinkage, with the former affected by declining trading volume from Pump.fun, and the latter due to overall market activity weakening. Aerodrome and THENA still demonstrate some profitability, yet face stronger competitors in their respective ecosystems.
Looking ahead, DEX must confront three core issues:
- How to maintain trading activity—With market cooling and decreased user trading willingness, how can DEX enhance user stickiness?
- How to optimize liquidity management—Amid whale arbitrage and intensified CEX competition, how can platforms build a more robust liquidity system in the DeFi space?
- How to achieve sustainable revenue—During a bear market cycle, high-fee models are difficult to support long-term, do DEX need new profit models?
In the face of industry challenges, the future survival path for DEX may no longer solely depend on trading volume but rather on liquidity, risk control mechanisms, and ecological layout.
This article is collaboratively reprinted from: Deep Tide