DEX activity declined in the first quarter of 2026, returning to its lowest level in a year. The decline occurred in conjunction with general cautious behavior in the market, limiting DEX speculation on the token.
Overall DEX activity slowed in the first quarter, leading to a significant outflow of Ethereum volume. Weakness in the overall crypto market in the first quarter led to lower speculation in tokens.
The slowdown was partially offset by: HIP-3 Activities and newly added product markets. However, the new market has not yet fully compensated for the outflow of token trading. of altcoin market is also changing, and expectations for new DEX launches are decreasing. The lack of “star tokens” in DEXs has led to a decline in activity compared to a period of hype and bullish expectations.
DEX trading outflows seen on all major chains
DEX activity in the past week reached $41.07 billion, which is similar to $41.6 billion at the end of March 2025. Last year erased most of the bullish gains, with activity picking up but still falling to a strong baseline.
Solana still leads other networks over the past 30 months with a volume share of $11.42 billion. One of the main reasons is that PumpSwap is still very active and Pump.fun continues to generate new tokens.
Additionally, the share of DEXs in concentrated trading has decreased from a peak of over 21% in summer 2025 to 14.1%.
DEX activity is a sign of crypto-native usage and ecosystem vibrancy. DEXs are also used to exchange between stablecoins. Changes in activity indicate different patterns of cryptocurrency usage and swaps.
Which are the top DEXs of 2026?
Traffic is still piling up on individual DEXs, especially multi-chain platforms. PancakeSwap remains the most active DEX, accounting for 9.9% of all activity.
DEX tokens remain relatively strong, with a market cap of $18 billion. Although HYPE is leading the pace, Hyperliquid has a different trading profile than typical DEXs. Other top assets include UNI, ASTER, PUMP, JUP, and CAKE, but only three have valuations exceeding $1 billion. Incentives and a slowdown in the farming season are also leading to an exodus of DEX users and a decline in interest in their tokens.
One source of Solana activity is the HumidiFi dark pool DEX, but this is not always reflected in general trading. HumidiFi’s market share is 7.8%. As a result of the invisible deal, some of Solana’s larger sandwich attacks have also slowed down.
Sandwich attacks have also been significantly reduced due to the effectiveness of meme trading in Solana. As of 2026, the largest percentage of sandwich attacks will be against the following transactions: 1 dollarindicating that the bot was even interested in intercepting small-scale meme transactions.
