Author: Scof, ChainCatcher
Editor: TB, ChainCatcher
In the past week, the survival status of decentralized exchanges has sparked widespread discussion.
Hyperliquid shook the market due to a 50x leverage whale "self-destructive arbitrage," with its HLP insurance pool losing nearly $4 million after taking on liquidation orders.
On the other hand, GMGN, which was thriving 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 drop of nearly 97%. Meanwhile, community feedback highlights high KOL marketing expenses, user attrition, and increased competition from CEXs, raising further concerns about GMGN's future.
In light of this, ChainCatcher reviews the recent revenue situation of seven mainstream DEXs in this article for readers' reference.
Quick Interpretation (No fluff, straight to the conclusions)
- Jupiter and PancakeSwap still maintain high daily revenues, with stable long-term performance.
- Hyperliquid leads in revenue over the past 24 hours, but has significantly retreated from historical highs.
- Raydium and Shadow Exchange have seen a sharp decline in revenue, with a noticeable decrease in market activity.
- Aerodrome and THENA have also experienced severe declines but still possess some profitability.
Below is a comparison of the recent 24-hour revenue situation and historical highest daily revenue of several mainstream DEXs:
Note: All data sourced from Defillama, as of March 12.
Breaking Down the Current Status and Trends of Mainstream DEXs
1. Shadow Exchange
✅ Background and Positioning: A native centralized liquidity layer and exchange deployed on Sonic. Supported by the x(3,3) incentive model, it aims to provide an efficient and low-cost trading experience.
📉 Revenue Data: Historical high of 864.44K, recent 24-hour revenue of 83K, a decline of 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 the trading experience, providing substantial returns for liquidity providers and traders. The Gems reward system attracts deep participation from the Sonic ecosystem, driving protocol ecosystem expansion and demonstrating sustained growth potential.
2. Raydium
✅ Background and Positioning: A leading AMM DEX in the Solana ecosystem, which previously attracted a large number of users with low fees and efficient trading.
📉 Revenue Data: Historical high of 3.39M, recent 24-hour revenue of only 48K, a decline of 98.57%, with a significant drop in market activity.
📊 Market Performance: At one point in Q4 2024, it accounted for 61% of Solana DEX trading volume, but its TVL was only 39% of Uniswap's, indicating active trading but relatively insufficient liquidity. Additionally, Raydium's trading volume is highly dependent on support from Pump.fun, necessitating the search for expansion into new non-meme areas.
3. Jupiter
✅ Background and Positioning: A leading DEX aggregator in the Solana ecosystem, providing optimal trading path optimization and serving as a core pillar of Solana DeFi trading volume.
📉 Revenue Data: Historical high of 3.13M, recent 24-hour revenue of 329K, a decline of 89.46%, but still maintains relatively high activity compared to other DEXs.
📊 Market Performance: As the DEX with the largest trading volume in the Solana ecosystem, it has deep liquidity and high cross-platform integration, resulting in low user trading costs. However, it has recently faced scrutiny for potential insider trading due to the Libra incident, with no further investigation results available yet.
4. 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, a decline of 82.65%, but still maintains high profitability in the DeFi space.
📊 Market Performance: Thanks to the activity in the BSC ecosystem, PancakeSwap has a broad DeFi user base and continues to expand its product features (such as NFTs, staking, etc.).
5. Hyperliquid
✅ Background and Positioning: A decentralized derivatives trading platform in the Arbitrum ecosystem, employing an active market-making mechanism to differentiate itself from GMX.
📉 Revenue Data: Historical high of 4.42M, recent 24-hour revenue of 1.17M, a decline of 73.52%, but still holds a dominant position in the DeFi derivatives market.
📊 Market Performance: Attracting traders with high-leverage trading, Hyperliquid maintains a lead in trading volume and profitability. However, recent whale arbitrage events have raised doubts about its liquidity management mechanism, leading to some capital fleeing for safety.
6. Aerodrome
✅ Background and Positioning: The core DEX of the Base ecosystem, utilizing a ve(3,3) economic model to incentivize liquidity providers and optimize the trading experience.
📉 Revenue Data: Historical high of 1.52M, recent 24-hour revenue of 290K, a decline of 80.91%, with a decrease in market liquidity but still maintaining some activity.
📊 Market Performance: Dominating in the Base ecosystem, benefiting from recent signs of recovery in the Base chain, with strong market performance, increasing trading volume, and market capitalization, along with high community participation.
7. THENA
✅ Background and Positioning: One of the DEXs in the BNB ecosystem, employing 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, a decline of 77.02%, but still holds some competitiveness in the BSC ecosystem.
📊 Market Performance: Positioned as a secondary DEX in the BSC ecosystem, facing strong competition from PancakeSwap, but its ve(3,3) model still attracts some liquidity. According to the website, THENA is planning to migrate to version V3. This upgrade 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, decentralized exchanges are generally experiencing a trend of declining revenues, intensified competition, and structural differentiation. The revenues of mainstream platforms have generally retreated by 70%-98% from historical highs, with market activity significantly affected.
Jupiter and PancakeSwap remain at the forefront, with high daily revenues and relatively stable long-term performance, relying on ecosystem layout and user base to maintain competitiveness. Hyperliquid still occupies a place in the derivatives market, but concerns about its risk control capabilities have arisen due to whale arbitrage events, impacting capital liquidity. Raydium and Shadow Exchange have seen significant revenue shrinkage, with the former affected by a decline in Pump.fun trading volume and the latter due to overall market activity weakening. Aerodrome and THENA still possess some profitability but face pressure from stronger competitors in their respective ecosystems.
Looking ahead, DEXs still need to address three core issues:
- How to maintain trading activity — As the market cools, user trading willingness declines; how can DEXs enhance user stickiness?
- How to optimize liquidity management — With whale arbitrage and intensified CEX competition, how can platforms build a more robust liquidity system in the DeFi space?
- How to achieve sustainable revenue — In a bear market cycle, high-fee models are difficult to sustain long-term; do DEXs need new profit models?
In the face of industry challenges, the future survival path for DEXs may no longer just be about trading volume, but rather about liquidity, risk control mechanisms, and ecosystem layout.
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