ON–311: DEXs 🔀
Coverage on Uniswap, Raydium, PancakeSwap, Aerodrome & Meteora
Feb 7, 2025
Uniswap | Raydium | PancakeSwap | Aerodrome | Meteora
- Uniswap V3 is the third iteration of the Uniswap DEX, supported by most Layer 2 chains. Insights were primarily derived from the activity of new users (traders and liquidity providers) on five major L2 chains—Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, and BSC in 2024. Trader onboarding steadily increased from January to December across these chains, peaking at over 400K around November 23. Base stood out, accounting for over 75% of the total onboarded traders, signaling healthy on-chain adoption in 2024.
- With over $28M and a 68.4% share, Base dominated all other L2 chains in fees collected from trade activity of onboarded traders in 2024. Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, and BSC follow with shares of 24.8%, 4.3%, 1.4%, and 1%, respectively.
- On Arbitrum, active liquidity providers (LPs) stood at 88,050 on the last day of 2024, the highest among the other L2 chains. Which pools are these LPs most active in? WETH/USDC consistently leads weekly liquidity flows, making it a key liquidity driver for new LPs on Uniswap V3 on Arbitrum.
✏️
Editor's Note:
Uniswap v4, the exchange's next iteration, went live on Jan. 31. Primary among changes, V4 implements Hooks, a system which allows developers to more deeply customize liquidity pools' behavior. Examples of the newly enabled customization includes the ability to dynamically adjust the fees charged on trades, use native ETH —instead of wrapped ETH—, and to opt-out of the concentrated liquidity model.
Uniswap v4, the exchange's next iteration, went live on Jan. 31. Primary among changes, V4 implements Hooks, a system which allows developers to more deeply customize liquidity pools' behavior. Examples of the newly enabled customization includes the ability to dynamically adjust the fees charged on trades, use native ETH —instead of wrapped ETH—, and to opt-out of the concentrated liquidity model.
- Raydium’s record-breaking $166.6B in January volume cemented its position among the top DEXs for the start of 2025 — all while operating solely on Solana. This underscores the growing strength of Solana's DeFi ecosystem and Raydium's dominant market share, accounting for 56.6% of all Solana DEX volume. Raydium’s surge signals a shifting landscape where Solana-native protocols can outpace multi-chain incumbents.
- In all of 2024, there were approximately $92M of notional RAY buybacks. In January 2025 alone, buybacks reached approximately $54M, representing 58% of the amount bought back in the entirety of 2024.
✏️
Editor's Note:
12% of Raydium's trading fees go to buying back RAY on the open market, according to the project's documentation.
12% of Raydium's trading fees go to buying back RAY on the open market, according to the project's documentation.
- Raydium accounted for 65.3% ($12.5B) of Solana-based AI token trading volume in January, highlighting Raydium's ability to remain at the forefront of new asset-issuance and token sub-sectors.
- With V4 right around the corner, PancakeSwap has experienced strong volume growth over the last 12 months to reach over $50B monthly. In the process the DEX's CAKE token has strengthened its status as a multi-chain deflationary token. Circulation of CAKE on 8 chains other than BNB Chain is growing and the average supply decrease is over 120K CAKE weekly. Recent feature releases such the Springboard, a meme token launchpad, new IFOs, future deployment of V4, demonstrate the commitment of the team behind PancakeSwap
- Every week 275k CAKE are issued. This is offset by CAKE collected from the market through fees and various activities. The excess collection contributes to deflation with an average weekly supply decrease of 120k CAKE. Since deflation started 11m CAKE were removed or 2.8% of supply.
- Pancakeswap operates on 9 chains and there are soon to be announced new expansions. While 96.7% of CAKE supply circulates on BSC, quantity of CAKE bridged is growing and reached 14M at its peak. Aptos takes the lead with 6.4M in CAKE followed by Ethereum with 4.2M.
🔦
Transaction Spotlight:
Cakepie, a project build on top of CAKE, is the largest holder of veCAKE, the vote-locked version of PancakeSwap's token. So far, Cakepie has committed to locking 13M CAKE forever. As the maximum locking period is 4 years, their weekly lock extension to the maximum period is visible on chain. With 50.2% of the veCAKE voting power Cakepie is attracting nice bribing opportunities for CKP, Cakepie's governance token. With other protocols, such as Astherus and Stake DAO, also locking CAKE, the bribes market for the token has the potential to become continuously more competitive.
Cakepie, a project build on top of CAKE, is the largest holder of veCAKE, the vote-locked version of PancakeSwap's token. So far, Cakepie has committed to locking 13M CAKE forever. As the maximum locking period is 4 years, their weekly lock extension to the maximum period is visible on chain. With 50.2% of the veCAKE voting power Cakepie is attracting nice bribing opportunities for CKP, Cakepie's governance token. With other protocols, such as Astherus and Stake DAO, also locking CAKE, the bribes market for the token has the potential to become continuously more competitive.
- Aerodrome Finance continues to dominate Base DEXs, amassing $153B in traded volume—surpassing Uniswap. In April 2024, it launched its Slipstream version, which enables fewer but larger trades with lower slippage, boosting transaction volume. Across both versions, it has processed 49M trades and engaged 1.6M unique addresses, securing 50.8% of Base’s DEX volume. As liquidity grows, Aerodrome solidifies its position as the top choice for speed, efficiency, and innovation.
- On Jan. 20, 2025, Aerodrome hit a new all-time high with ~$1.68B in daily traded volume, driven largely by Slipstream at ~$1.61B. This surge was likely fueled by the launch of the bridged TRUMP token, which became tradable and available for LP on Aerodrome with a USDC pair on the same day.
- With over 1,000 liquidity pools on Aerodrome, USDC-WETH leads in volume and unique addresses, hitting ~$80B in traded volume and ~251K total addresses, potentially driving higher engagement and transaction frequency across the DEX.
🔦
Transaction Spotlight:
This transaction is a prime example of high-value activity within the Aerodrome ecosystem, aligning liquidity flows and market impact. With 37,501 AERO ($35.6K) involved, alongside WETH and Super OETH movements exceeding $76M, this could be linked to liquidity provisioning or strategic rebalancing. The burn of Super OETH adds another layer — possibly a mechanism to manage supply dynamics.
This transaction is a prime example of high-value activity within the Aerodrome ecosystem, aligning liquidity flows and market impact. With 37,501 AERO ($35.6K) involved, alongside WETH and Super OETH movements exceeding $76M, this could be linked to liquidity provisioning or strategic rebalancing. The burn of Super OETH adds another layer — possibly a mechanism to manage supply dynamics.
👥 Aishat Suleiman | Website | Dashboard
- Meteroa, a key venue for trading on Solana, has had a major increase in revenue generated in 2025 — in a 24-hour span, the project ranked only behind Tether, the stablecoin, in terms of revenue, according to DeFiLlama.
- TVL also mirrors trading volume movements, with a similar spike in late January. This spike was caused by the TRUMP token, which launched with Meteora on Jan. 18.
