Ethereum Regains DEX Dominance, Ousting Solana from the Top Spot

In March, Ethereum reclaimed the top spot in terms of total trading volume on decentralized exchanges (DEX), surpassing Solana, which had led the sector since September of the previous year.

According to data from DeFi Llama, the total trading volume on Ethereum-based exchanges hit $64.6 billion, a 22% increase compared to Solana’s $52.62 billion.

The decline in trading volume on Solana, particularly on platforms like Raydium and Pump.fun, can be attributed to decreasing interest in the meme coin segment. However, back in January, this «people’s ecosystem» had seen a surge in activity due to the launch of the TRUMP token.

In March, Raydium recorded no days with trading volumes exceeding $1 billion.

The average daily trading volume for «funny coins» on Pump.fun dropped from $390 million in January to below $100 million by March.

While Solana faced setbacks, the Ethereum ecosystem showed more stable performance.

A significant portion of the trading volume was generated by the DEX Uniswap, which achieved a turnover of $30 billion. Fluid took the second place among Ethereum exchanges with a volume of $9 billion, indicating increasing competition.

Despite the success in the DEX sector, the price of the Ethereum token (ETH) fell by 18% in March, which was steeper than Solana’s decline of 15.8%.

Expert Ali Martinez believes that for a confirmation of growth, the asset must return to the $2,100 mark and then establish itself above $2,300.

He identified these levels as crucial for a trend reversal to bullish.

CEO of Alphractal, Joao Vedson, remarked that altcoins mirrored Bitcoin’s movement.

He explained that the average market correlation is nearly 1: when the price of the leading cryptocurrency rises, altcoins tend to follow suit. Conversely, if Bitcoin declines, other assets generally decrease as well.

During such periods, high-frequency trading bots on exchanges and in funds operate in sync, Vedson noted.

He believes that the «decoupling» of altcoins from digital gold would signal a market upturn.

At the lower price range, several tokens are showing signs of a Pump & Dump scheme, which could indicate gradual accumulation of assets by institutional investors, Vedson concluded.

Recall that on March 17, analysts at Standard Chartered revised their Ethereum price forecast for 2025, reducing it from $10,000 to $4,000.

On March 26, Ethereum developers successfully deployed the Pectra update on the Hoodi testnet.