Uniswap First Decentralized Exchange to Cross $3 Trillion in Trading Volume

On Monday, Uniswap confirmed that it has become the first decentralised exchange (DEX) to hit $3 trillion in trading volume.

It’s not usual for a DEX to clock high trading volumes, owing to never-ending challenges with liquidity, speed, congestion, and regulatory risks. Therefore, when centralised exchanges (CEXs) like Binance have reached over $100 trillion in trading volume, DEXs struggle to clock even a fraction.

Post-pandemic, however, the trend seemed to change with more and more people trusting decentralised exchanges like Uniswap. Today, Uniswap’s Inventor and CEO Hayden Adams confirmed on X that the exchange is the first DEX to hit $3T volume.

First DEX to Hit $3T

With this, DEXs are gradually making their mark in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. In the growing DEX sector, Uniswap continues to dominate with close to a quarter of the overall market share.

The exchange hit the coveted $1 trillion volumes in May 2022, followed by $2 trillion in April 2024. The growth trend is in sync to double every other year.

The rapid increase in crypto trading since November 2024 is said to be the main driver behind the growth reported by Uniswap, similar to multiple other platforms and exchanges. The flagship crypto token, Bitcoin, has witnessed a remarkable rally of over 50% to reach $105k over the past seven months.

Uniswap’s Struggling Journey to $3T

Uniswap was launched in 2018 and has been dominating the market share in the DEX ever since. But their journey was not easy.

The platform has seen regulatory hurdles like investigations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and a rapid drop in trading volumes after the 2022 crypto winter. Even today, the daily trading volumes are reportedly half of what they were during their peak in 2021.

The DEX’s native token UNI has also seen a massive drop of over 80% from its peak of $45 seen in May 2021. Earlier this year, the UNI token price saw a major rally following the $165.5 million funding.

Uniswap’s new milestone appears to be a new ray of hope for the gradually recovering DEXs. It demonstrates that the sector is maturing and the adoption of decentralized trading platforms is moving up.