Centralized exchanges (CEX) still hold the main liquidity in the crypto market. But the balance is gradually shifting.
Over the past two years, the share of decentralized exchanges (DEX) in the spot market has doubled. In the perpetual futures segment, their volume has grown even more.
On-chain trading no longer looks like a niche alternative. More and more, it is competing with centralized platforms.
Hyperliquid, Uniswap and PancakeSwap Enter the Top 10 Exchanges
The CEX & DEX Trading Activity Report 2026 by CoinGecko shows the scale of trading on centralized platforms. In 2025, nearly $80 trillion in spot and futures trades went through CEX.
This figure still leaves CEX as the main platforms in the market.
See also: MEXC Expands Tokenized Stock Offerings With New Ondo Finance Listings
Meanwhile, decentralized exchanges are growing faster. More and more traders are switching to on-chain execution of trades. Because of this, the gap between CEX and DEX is gradually narrowing.
Monthly trading volume of CEX and DEX. Source: CoinGecko report.
The share of DEX in the spot market grew from 6.9% in January 2024 to 13.6% in January 2026. Monthly trading volume on decentralized exchanges more than doubled during this time. It rose from $95.86 billion to $231.29 billion.
The highest figure was recorded in June 2025. At that time, DEX accounted for about 24.5% of all spot trading. The CoinGecko report says part of this growth is linked to the launch of Binance Alpha 2.0. The platform routed trades through PancakeSwap.
Later, the share of DEX declined but remained above 10%. This level has held since the beginning of 2025. It shows that interest in on-chain trade execution remains.
Centralized exchanges, meanwhile, remain the main source of liquidity. Their monthly spot volume exceeded $1 trillion throughout the period.
Perpetual Futures: DEX Breakthrough and Hyperliquid Leadership
The perpetual futures market grew by 75% in two years. Its volume increased from $4.14 trillion in January 2024 to $7.24 trillion in January 2026.
In this segment, decentralized exchanges grew faster than the market. Trading volume on perp-DEX increased almost eightfold. It rose from $81.7 billion to $739.5 billion.
Their market share grew from 2.0% to 10.2%. Now, about one in ten dollars in the crypto perpetuals market goes through decentralized platforms.
One of the most prominent platforms was Hyperliquid. It is the only DEX to make the top 10 exchanges for perpetual futures trading.
From August 2025 to January 2026, about $1.59 trillion in trading volume passed through Hyperliquid. By this metric, the platform approached major centralized exchanges.
Exchange rankings for spot trading and perpetuals. Source: CoinGecko report.
In the spot trading segment, Uniswap and PancakeSwap also entered the top 10 exchanges by volume. In six months, each platform surpassed $0.5 trillion in total turnover.
Just a few years ago, the idea that several DEX would be among the largest exchanges in the market seemed unlikely.
Token Listings Show Model Differences
The report also draws attention to differences in the number of listings. Among centralized exchanges, MEXC and Gate.io were the leaders. Over 13 months they added 1,281 and 1,273 tokens, respectively. That is just under 100 new listings per month.
However, these figures account for only about 0.01% of the 24.04 million tokens created during the same period.
For decentralized exchanges, the situation is completely different. Uniswap alone added 13.69 million tokens. This is because listing on a DEX does not require permission.
As a result, two different models are formed. Centralized exchanges strictly select new assets. DEX, on the other hand, allow the launch and trading of a much larger number of tokens.
Losses of $2.4 Billion Due to Hacks
The growth of the crypto industry is also accompanied by losses. In just over a year, exchanges lost more than $2.4 billion due to hacks.
Centralized platforms accounted for most of this amount. Their losses exceeded $2 billion. About 71% is linked to a single incident: the attack on Bybit in February 2025.
Decentralized exchanges suffered significantly lower losses. The largest incident in this segment is estimated at about $223 million. Most often, the cause is vulnerabilities in smart contracts or oracle manipulation.
See also: Kraken Gains Access to the U.S. Federal Reserve Payment System
Despite this, centralized exchanges remain the main source of liquidity in the market. Decentralized platforms, however, are gradually increasing their share in both spot trading and derivatives.
Currently, the share of DEX exceeds 10%. The emergence of institutional-grade on-chain platforms shows that some liquidity is gradually moving into decentralized infrastructure.
