DEX Spot Volume Hit a Record 24% of CEX Volume in July

Decentralized exchanges handled spot volume equal to 24% of centralized exchange volume in July, the highest ratio since The Block's data series began in 2019.

The record share came in a shrinking market: onchain volume held up better than centralized exchange volume as both fell, extending a climb that had DEXs below 10% of CEX volume for most of 2024 and between 18% and 21% through the first half of 2026.

The ratio reached 24.14%, according to The Block's DEX-to-CEX data, which measures DefiLlama's top 30 DEXs against the largest centralized exchanges. In absolute terms, DEX spot volume fell 26% in July to $130.77 billion from $177.55 billion in June, the lowest monthly total since September 2024, per Blockworks data. Daily DEX volume topped $6 billion only once all month, on July 8.

Uniswap led DEXs with $52.04 billion in trailing 30-day volume as of Aug. 3, followed by PancakeSwap at $17.59 billion and Pump.fun's PumpSwap at $17.3 billion, per DefiLlama. By chain, Solana led with about $49.5 billion, ahead of BNB Chain at $31.6 billion, Ethereum at $28.6 billion and Base at $21.9 billion.

Robinhood Chain Effect

The newest contributor is Robinhood Chain, which launched its public mainnet July 1 and immediately became the fifth-largest chain by DEX volume at roughly $14.7 billion over 30 days. Uniswap Labs deployed v2, v3, v4 and UniswapX on the chain July 2, supporting crypto assets and Robinhood's tokenized stocks, which are available in more than 120 countries but not to U.S. users. Daily DEX volume on the chain peaked at $943.6 million on July 11, with Uniswap handling nearly all of it.

Listing speed keeps pulling long-tail activity onchain. Uniswap listed 13.69 million tokens in the year through January, and Pump.fun 5.01 million, against roughly 1,300 each for MEXC and Gate, the most active centralized listers, per a CoinGecko report.

Stablecoins Carry the Slow Month

Stablecoin pairs made up about $31.5 billion of July's DEX activity, roughly 30%, per Blockworks. Tokenized-equity DEX volume dropped to $1.4 billion from June's $3.56 billion, the second-highest month on record. K33 Research attributed July's overall slump to a seasonal summer lull rather than a structural decline.