SwapSpace Report: Ethereum's DEX Volume Share Falls to 19.3% From 46.2%

DEX Volume Scales 9,260x, Then Cools

Decentralized exchange activity has expanded at a pace few infrastructure sectors ever match: aggregate decentralized exchange volume grew roughly 9,260x between 2019 and its record of $4.7 trillion in 2025, according to the State of Crypto Swaps 2026 report published by aggregator SwapSpace. The trajectory captures how far on-chain trading has traveled in seven years, from a niche alternative to a multi-trillion-dollar execution layer. The expansion, however, is no longer linear. Year-to-date in 2026, DEX activity has moderated to $1.63 trillion as the broader crypto market cools, even though the base remains far above pre-2024 levels. Our reading of the report is that the moderation reflects market conditions rather than structural retreat: centralized venues still process the majority of spot trading, while DEXs keep gaining ground in niches such as perpetual futures. The result is a hybrid market in which traders route between centralized and decentralized venues depending on liquidity depth, asset availability, transaction size and prevailing conditions. No single model is winning outright.

Ethereum's Share Slides as Solana and BNB Chain Gain

The more consequential finding is where that volume now lives. DeFiLlama data cited in the report shows Ethereum accounted for 46.2% of global DEX volume in 2021, with BNB Chain holding another 39.6%. By 2025, Ethereum's share had fallen to 19.3% and BNB Chain's to 15.3%, while Solana captured 33.3% and all other chains combined took 32.1%. SwapSpace's own platform data mirrors the rotation: Ethereum led its activity from 2020 through 2024, Solana took first place in 2025, and BNB Chain topped the ranking in 2026. Multichain behavior is now the norm rather than the edge case, with 90.12% of SwapSpace users interacting with more than one blockchain in 2026, up from a low of 72.50% in 2024. Fragmentation also runs beneath the chain level, since DeFiLlama tracks roughly 1,950 protocols on Ethereum, more than 1,200 on BNB Chain, and over 1,000 each on Arbitrum and Base, each with distinct pools and order types. Intent-based routing systems such as UniswapX, 1inch Fusion and NEAR Intents are emerging as the interface-layer response, pushing routing complexity behind the screen.

Bear Market Lifts Crypto-Backed Borrowing

While trading liquidity fragments, holders are changing how they extract value from their portfolios. A CryptoQuant analysis published this week, drawing on lending service CoinRabbit's data, finds that crypto-collateralized borrowing intensified after the market turned bearish in 2026. Average borrow counts per investor rose 74% among retail users, from 30.8 to 53.5 transactions, and 18% among high-net-worth individuals, from 16.5 to 19.4, compared with the 2025 bull market. The share of repeat borrowers climbed from 61.9% to 65.1%, and the average interval between retail loans roughly doubled from 11 to 21 days, which CryptoQuant reads as users sustaining borrowing over longer horizons rather than borrowing once. Collateral choices are diversifying too. Bitcoin's share of high-net-worth collateral halved from 57.8% to 30.5%, while Zcash jumped from outside the top ten to third place at 24.2% after its price climbed from roughly $50 in September 2025 to about $800 now; Monero, Chainlink and Cardano also rose. Retail borrowers still lead with wrapped Bitcoin-style collateral alternatives in XRP, followed by BTC and ETH, with BNB, KAS and VELO entering the top ten this year. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Gate.

Liquidity Access Replaces Selling

Taken together, the two datasets describe a market maturing past simple buy-and-sell cycles. The SwapSpace report shows execution dispersing across chains, protocols and venue types, while the CoinRabbit records underlying the CryptoQuant analysis show holders meeting cash needs against collateral instead of liquidating, with yield-bearing stablecoin-style instruments and diversified collateral broadening the toolkit. The common thread is liquidity access under stress: rather than concentrating in one dominant exchange or one flagship asset, users now assemble execution and financing from a wider menu. For COINOTAG, the signal is that fragmentation is not a bug to be routed around but the market's settled structure through this bear phase, and infrastructure that abstracts it, whether intent-based routers or multi-collateral lenders, is where user behavior is visibly heading.