Ethereum DEX Volumes Hit 2-Year High as Altcoins Face a Reckoning

• In January 2025, Ethereum DEXs recorded $86.01 billion in trading volumes; Solana DEXs recorded $258.48 billion.
• Daily Solana DEX volumes hit an ATH of $35.89 billion on Jan. 15, 2025.
• The altcoin market dropped around 15% of its market cap in the past month, falling from a January peak of $1.51 trillion to $1.26 trillion.

Ethereum’s (ETH) decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volumes have hit a 2-year high following a lackluster 2024.

Meanwhile, Solana (SOL) DEX volumes continue to shatter records.

Ethereum DEX Performance

As per DeFi Llama , Ethereum DEX volumes hit a 2-year high of $7.63 billion on Feb. 3, 2025. Its previous high was $11.12 billion on March 11, 2023.

Between 2023 and 2024, daily ETH DEX volumes trailed $1.5 billion on average. In 2024, this figure picked up toward the $2 billion range but stumbled throughout most of the year.

On Aug. 5, 2024, ETH DEX volumes topped $7.33 billion, though this quickly slumped back to an average of around $1.5 billion in the days and weeks that followed.

The bullish sentiment that swelled after Donald Trump’s nomination as U.S. president gave ETH DEXs a modest boost, allowing them to capture volumes in the $2 billion to $3 billion range regularly.

Overall, ETH and its ecosystem underwhelmed the crypto scene throughout 2024 with lackluster price performance.

Despite the approval of spot ETH exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the long-awaited “Dencun” upgrade, and a renewed bullish sentiment with Trump in the White House, ETH seems to have fallen behind.

SOL Overperforms

On the other hand, Solana (SOL) DEXs have consistently recorded daily volumes exceeding $2 billion. In the past 24 hours, they’ve notched $7.8 billion in trading volumes.

Last year, Solana-based DEX trading volumes skyrocketed following the rise of memecoin-creating platform pump.fun, which served as the bedrock of Solana’s on-chain activity surge throughout 2024.

On Jan. 1, 2024, SOL DEX daily volumes totaled $545.72 million, peaking at $7.14 billion on Nov. 18.

There appears to be no sign of slowing down either, as on Jan. 18, 2025, volumes reached a record-breaking $35.89 billion thanks to the launch of Trump’s official memecoin (TRUMP).