Uniswap Beats Coinbase to Become Second Largest Venue for ETH Trading

Decentralized exchange Uniswap became the second-largest exchange for Ethereum trading in the last 24 hours, beating out Coinbase and paving the way for non-custodial exchanges in the wake of collapsed crypto FTX.

According to data from Uniswap, the decentralized exchange amassed $1.1 billion in trading volume for Ethereum, while Coinbase processed about $0.6 billion worth of ETH trades. Binance is still the clear leader, with $1.9 billion. The milestone was noted by Alex Svanevik, the CEO of crypto analytics company Nansen. 

The rise of trading on decentralized exchanges, if sustained, could suggest that traders are fleeing from custodial exchanges to non-custodial trading protocols, where they swap coins through public smart contracts that do not control the funds in their wallets. 

Early evidence supports the trend. The total trading volume of decentralized exchanges has soared in the past few days, reaching $28 billion during the last week, according to a Dune analytics dashboard.

And cold wallet provider Ledger just had the highest sales week in its history. “The message is clear: people are realizing that we must return to decentralization and to self-custody,” CEO Pascal Gauthier told Decrypt. 

On the latest episode of The Chopping Block, Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures, said DeFi’s resilience is evident in the collapse of Alameda. That the FTX-linked trading firm had to repay smart contracts instead of “relying on sweetheart deals with their own exchange is the ultimate sign that crypto’s technology is the right technology in the future.”