DEX Volume Eclipses $5 Billion in First Half of 2020, 400% Up From Last Year

The trading volume of decentralized exchanges (DEX) has gone past the $5 billion milestone in the first six months of 2020, which is a significant increase from the 2019 performance.

June 2020 Sets DEX Trading Volume ATH

In a tweet on Wednesday, Dune Analytics informed that the DEX trading volume for the first half of 2020 totaled about $5.1B. This figure represents a five-fold increase from the same period in 2019, providing further evidence of the significant growth of DEX platforms.

We are halfway through 2020 and the results are in 🍿🍿

2020 so far saw $5,1 Billion in DEX volume, 5x from the first six months of 2019 📈 June alone saw over $1,5 billion 💪

Congrats to @CurveFinance and @BalancerLabs that exploded the last month 💣https://t.co/ifsecZBNmz pic.twitter.com/UIJiHUXo90

— Dune Analytics (@DuneAnalytics) July 1, 2020

Also, statistics reveal that tokens of decentralized exchanges have a greater return on investment (ROI) compared to their centralized counterparts. At the time of writing, the Kyber Network (KNC) token is up by over 650% since the start of 2020. 

KNC is currently the best performer, with its token price surging more than 18% over the last 24-hour trading period. The token is at its highest price level in two years. 

Other DEX tokens such as Loopring (LRC), AirSwap (AST), IDEX (IDEX), Bancor (BNT), and 0x (ZRX) also have impressive year-to-date (YTD) performances. Meanwhile, centralized tokens (CEX) like Houbi and Bitfinex (LEO) are struggling to regain their footing after the Black Thursday price crash. 

DeFi Dominating Crypto Discourse in 2020

The massive growth in DEX trading volume is only part of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ‘s domination of the crypto headlines in 2020. According to data from Defipulse, the total value locked in USD on the Ethereum-based DeFi market is more than $1.7B.

As reported by CryptoPotato in June 2020, COMP, the governance token for the decentralized lending platform, surged over 100%, with the platform crossing the $400 million mark in total value locked. A few days later, Compound overtook MakerDAO to become the number one platform by total value locked (TVL).

While Compound was still making waves, Balancer entered the fray as liquidity mining mania reached a fever pitch. The decentralized exchange launched its BAL governance tokens with its price soaring afterward. According to DeFi Pulse, Balancer is currently number four on the list with TVL at $135 million. 

Amid the growing prominence of the DeFi market in the aggregated crypto collective, CMC created a dedicated DeFi section. CMC’s top four rankings on the DeFi section are different from the log provided by DeFiMarketCap, with Kyber Network and Ox being third and fourth on the former’s reckoning. 

The DeFi explosion has not been without a few mishaps with rogue actors taking advantage of bugs to drain protocols of substantial sums. CryptoPotato reported that Balancer lost $500,000 worth of tokens after a hacker exploited a vulnerability in two of the exchange’s pools.