Uniswap Traffic Up 43% in September, Centralized Exchanges Eat 10%+ Losses

New data published by ICO Analytics offers an interesting insight into centralized exchange activity. Most centralized exchanges, including popular ones like Binance and Coinbase, have seen website traffic drops in excess of 10%. Uniswap, on the other hand, saw a 43% increase in website traffic.

ICO Analytics compared website traffic from September and August 2020. DeFi has been rapidly growing since early 2020, and DEX usage has spiked along with it. September 2020 saw the release of Uniswap’s UNI governance token, which partly explains the rise in Uniswap’s traffic. However, general improvement in DEXs has also contributed to migration towards it. Coinbase, which saw a 23% decrease in website traffic, has had a headline-filled past two months. CEO Brian Armstrong recently issued a public statement concerning Coinbase’s stance on political activism and discussions in the workplace. Traders are now also bearing withdrawal fees on its professional exchange. This combination of factors could possibly be why it has experienced a comparatively greater decline.

Uniswap Reigns Among DEXs

Uniswap is by far the most popular decentralized exchange, beating rival platforms by a considerable amount in terms of volume. According to DeFi data platform DeFi Pulse, Uniswap has a total value of $2.34 billion locked, followed by Curve Finance with $1.1 billion and Balancer with $284 million.

Uniswap is also more popular by other standards of measurement. Dune Analytics shows that Uniswap has 77.9% of the DEX market share, followed by Curve with 10.03%. Weekly trading volumes for Uniswap and Curve are at $2.67 billion and $344 million, respectively. The DEX’s recently launched governance token, UNI, has drawn many traders to the platform. While it has not hit the staggering price increases of other tokens, it remains popular. The platform is preparing for full decentralization on October 17.

DeFi Breathes New Life into Ethereum

Ethereum has spent much of 2020 slowly appreciating in price, and the ETH 2.0 upgrade seems to be just around the corner. The DeFi mania has spiked gas fees and extended transaction times, with the network struggling to support the demand. The ETH 2.0 upgrade will add sharding, a scalability solution that should help support the DeFi market growth. Phase 0 of ETH 2.0 is expected to be released in November, with other phases to follow as the months go by. Sharding will arrive in Phase 1, which will likely be implemented in 2021.