After an unprecedented surge in decentralized exchange (dex) and perpetual volumes last month, these decentralized finance (defi) platforms saw $52.81 billion in trading volume during the first four days of January 2025.
Uniswap and Hyperliquid to Dominate Defi Trading Volumes in 2025
The new year is starting on a promising note, with the crypto economy’s net worth rising above last week’s figures, now standing at $3.51 trillion. While centralized exchanges took the lead last month to end the year on a high note, decentralized exchanges also saw a significant increase in volume. According to Defillama data, December 2024 proved to be the high point for both centralized exchange trading volume and decentralized perpetual trading volume.
Dex trading volume surged to $322.25 billion in December, with Uniswap taking the lion’s share, raising over $109 billion. Uniswap, a spot cryptocurrency exchange, operates on an automated market maker (AMM) model, leveraging liquidity pools from direct token swaps. The decentralized perpetual trading protocol raised $369.4 billion, according to Defillama metrics. Hyperliquid led the way, boasting a staggering $235 billion last month.
Unlike traditional dex platforms like Uniswap, Hyperliquid is a high-performance decentralized perpetual exchange on its own layer-1 (L1) blockchain, equipped with an on-chain order book for advanced perpetual futures (perps) trading, and featuring low latency, high throughput, and professional tools. Uniswap and Hyperliquid have dominated the past four days with a combined volume of $52.81 billion, with Uniswap taking in $9.48 billion and Hyperliquid taking in $10.75 billion.
Under Uniswap is Raydium, a Solana-based protocol that has seen $8.61 billion traded so far in the first few days of January 2025. Like Uniswap, this dex uses an AMM but integrates with Solana’s high-speed and cost-effective infrastructure, providing fast transactions and high liquidity. Similarly, the second-largest decentralized exchange for criminals, Jupiter, is also built on the Solana blockchain for these same benefits. The Jupiter perpetual exchange departs from traditional decentralized perpetual exchanges like Hyperliquid with its LP-to-trader model.
Instead of using order books, Jupyter relies on the JLP pool, where liquidity providers act as counterparties to trades, facilitating zero slippage and deep liquidity through oracle integration. Over the past four days, statistics show that Jupyter has recorded nearly $2.45 billion in total trading volume. Other leading perps protocols include Synfutures, Apex Protocol, Satori Finance, Bluefin, Drift, GMX, and JOJO. Over the past 24 hours, 109 decentralized perps platforms have collectively seen $6.611 billion in total trading volume, according to Defillama statistics.
On the decentralized exchange front, in addition to Uniswap and Raydium, notable decentralized exchanges include Pancakeswap, Aerodrom, Lifinity, Orca, Curve Finance, Cetus, Pump.fun, and Dexalot. These decentralized exchanges saw a combined trading volume of $11.464 billion over the past day. The massive expansion in DeFi trading volumes over recent months signals a fundamental shift in the crypto markets, highlighting the innovation and adoption of decentralized platforms. As participants redefine trading dynamics, the challenge now is to maintain this momentum through 2025. So far, volumes have remained high.
