7 charts reveal the current state of DeFi: Fluid leads the DEX war, and USDe rewrites the stablecoin landscape

By The DeFi Investor

Compiled by Tim, PANews

2025 to date has been a very friendly year for DeFi.

Our regulatory environment has shifted from a hostile stance under Gary Gensler’s SEC to the crypto-friendly landscape we have today, and by almost every metric, DeFi adoption is increasing.

So I thought it was time to take a closer look at these seven charts on the state of DeFi.

The transaction volume from decentralized exchanges to centralized exchanges is reaching new highs

 Source: The Block

Although the progress is slow, the trend is clear: decentralized exchanges are continuously eroding the market share of centralized exchanges.

In June 2022, perpetual DEX held a mere 0.98% market share in the derivatives sector. Three years later, this figure had grown 11-fold.

Fluid is the fastest growing DEX

 Source: DeFiLlama

It is reported that less than a year after Fluid was launched, its daily trading volume once surpassed Uniswap, the leading DEX on Ethereum.

Fluid DEX V2 is about to launch, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Fluid ultimately wins the DEX war on Ethereum.

In terms of capital efficiency, V2 is expected to be much higher than V1.

Interest-earning stablecoins topped the capital inflow list for the first time

 Source: Artemis

Recently, Ethena's stablecoin USDe surpassed the two major stablecoins USDT and USDC in two-week net inflow for the first time.

Why is this change so important?

USDT and USDC have long led the market in the stablecoin sector, but now crypto-native solutions are emerging to challenge their dominance.

My prediction is that Resolv, Ethena, and Falcon Finance will continue to grow exponentially in the coming months.

Spot Ethereum ETFs Perform Well, But Rally Is Slowing

 Source: Coinglass

After several weeks of continuously breaking the record high for daily inflows, the Ethereum spot ETF recently recorded the largest single-day outflow on record.

The reason may be that some traditional financial giants have already taken profits.

However, if we take a macro view, the past two months have been the best performance period for spot Ethereum ETFs to date.

DeFi is approaching AI’s mind share

 Source: Kaito

For over a year now, AI has been leading in mind share.

But this situation is changing. In the past few months, the attention paid to DeFi has more than tripled. At the same time, the attention paid to meme coins has dropped significantly.

Fundamentals become important again.

Projects with token buyback plans will outperform in 2025

 Source: Dexu AI

This marks the beginning of the market's preference for tokens with solid fundamentals. Protocol subcategories that conducted token buybacks include Hyperliquid, PumpFun, Maple, EtherFi, Kaito, AAVE, and other projects.

Exchange BTC reserves continue to decline

 Source: Crypto Quant

Since February 2024 (shortly after the launch of the first Bitcoin spot ETFs in the United States), exchange BTC reserves have continued to decline, a trend that is exactly the opposite of the previous bull market.

During this cycle, the inflow of funds into Bitcoin ETFs and the purchasing demand generated by crypto asset reserve companies had a huge positive impact on BTC prices.

To sum up, the above are all the data charts to be presented in this issue.