Ethereum DEX Volume Flips Solana, But ETH-BTC Ratio Hovers at Five-Year Low

After five months, Ethereum has reclaimed the top spot from Solana for decentralized exchanges (DEX) volume, ending a five-month losing streak. However, with Ether’s recent underperformance, the move isn’t a cause for too much celebration.

As of April 1, the 30-day volume for Ethereum was $63 billion, compared to $51.3 billion for Solana, according to DeFiLlama. Yet ETH plunged almost 28% in March, according to CoinGecko.

The ETH/BTC ratio languishes at about 0.02, according to TradingView, a number last seen in mid-2020 when ETH was trading at about $200 and BTC nearly $10,000. Ether’s price today is about $1,900, while BTC is around $85,000.

The flip in DEX volume wasn’t really because of Ethereum’s strength, however.

Ethereum’s total DEX volume dropped over the previous three months, falling from $92.1 billion in December to $86.9 billion in January and $81.5 billion in February.

Meanwhile, Solana jumped from $120.6 billion in December to $260.5 billion in January, but then tanked to $104.5 billion in February before halving again in March.

Solana’s weakness can be seen clearly in the numbers of Raydium, its top DEX, which was fueled by the PumpFun memecoin launchpad. While Raydium lost that position to PumpSwap on March 20, its numbers are still down significantly from previous months.

Raydium’s monthly volume was just $14.2 billion in March, compared to $42 billion in February and $124 billion in January.

The Solana ecosystem has been grappling with the sudden collapse of the memecoin boom in the wake of the Libra scandal involving Argentinian President Javier Milei.

SOL is down almost 30% in March, something Messari Solana analyst Matthew Nay said was “the last straw for a lot of people.” He added that the time when “people could just launch random tokens with absolutely no utility, that’s the end of it.”