The token swap is fast becoming a trend in the crypto industry. Decentralized exchanges, a product of DeFi have catered to token swaps. What are decentralized exchanges? In our of our article about top exchanges based on trading volume, we gave a brief overview of decentralized exchanges. Just to emphasize, decentralized exchanges are trading platforms that allow peer-to-peer crypto transactions securely online without the need for intermediaries. But why a need for decentralized exchanges when there were already numerous centralized exchanges? Risks involving these exchanges which include scams and hacks have paved the way for the creation of decentralized exchanges.
In recent data by Dune Analytics, DEXs trading transaction has now reached more than $120 billion. Even Binance was quick to join the trend and launched its own decentralized exchange on April 23, 2019.
Overview to Token Swap
To understand more about DEXs token swap, let us have a brief overview of how they operate. According to Coinmarketcap, there are two types of token swaps.
- Direct exchange of a certain amount of one cryptocurrency token for another between users facilitated by a special exchange service.
This type will usually involve aggregators. These are DEXs that target the issue of less popular tokens which may be difficult to trade due to their limited liquidity and trading pairs. In cases like this, users may convert their tokens directly to other crypto or fiat. Aggregators help provide liquidity for tokens like this by accumulating liquidity from other exchanges. This way users may now directly swap between two cryptocurrencies eliminating the double fees that come with a two-step trading process.
- Migration of a cryptocurrency token built on top of one blockchain platform to a different blockchain.
Tokens may launch their tokens using existing underlying platforms like ETH and take advantage of their security and popularity without spending too much of their time and resources. But in time, they may find it no longer adequate for their growing needs. When this happens, a need for a different underlying parameter may arise. As such, a need to migrate to a different blockchain becomes inevitable. With the migration to a new blockchain, a token swap will be carried but will not affect the involved address’s original balance.
Top DEXs Token Swappers by Trading Volume
After an overview of the types of DEXs token swap, let’s now start our countdown of the top token swappers for this year based on trading volumes.
1. PancakeSwap is a Binance Smart Chain-based DEX with a penchant for breakfast foods and rabbits. It is almost similar to Ethereum’s SushiSwap (community governance, yield farming, and liquidity provider tokens), but also include other features that let you earn rewards. It was launched in September 2020 by anonymous devs.
Daily Trading Volume : $1,520,205,699
Market Share Percentage: 27%
Number of Markets: 408
2. MDEX is an automatic market-making (AMM) decentralized exchange based on the concept of fund pools. It proposes and implements a dual-chain DEX model based on the Heco Chain and Ethereum. Low transaction fees of the Heco chain and the prosperity of the Ethereum ecosystem. Despite being recently launched early this year, this exchange has immediately gained support from investors which is evident by its huge daily trading volume.
Daily Trading Volume : $1,435,022,218
Market Share Percentage: 26%
Number of Markets: 67
3. Uniswap V2 is a decentralized finance protocol that is used to exchange cryptocurrencies. It facilitates automated transactions between cryptocurrency tokens on the Ethereum blockchain through the use of smart contracts. It was founded in November 2018 by Hayden Adams, a former engineer at Siemens.
Daily Trading Volume : $1,068,960,852
Market Share Percentage : 19.4%
Number of Markets : 1,535
4. Sushiswap is a fork of Uniswap and community-owned that runs on Ethereum. It offers an incentive to its network of users to operate a platform where users can buy and sell crypto assets. Here, users provide liquidity to the pool by locking up their assets into smart contracts. Traders then buy and sell cryptocurrencies from those pools by swapping out one token for another. It was launched in September 2020 by its original creator that comes with the pseudonym Chef Nomi. It was taken over by the community after he removed his liquidity from the pool and sold it for 17971 ETH. It was reported that he returned the fund later on and apologized to the community and also to Binance. Unfortunately, the community remained unforgiving for an almost exit scam.
Daily Trading Volume : $364,082,004
Market Share Percentage: 6.6%
Number of Markets: 197
5. BurgerSwap is a protocol that runs on Binance Smart Chain (BSC). It allows users to swap between tokens issued on BSC, and earn rewards for providing liquidity to these decentralized markets. Liquidity providers receive BURGER tokens that represent their share of the pool. It was created by Tony Carson, Dr. Mehmet Sabir Kiraz, and Dr. Suleyman Kardas. It was launched in Binance Smart Chain (BSC) in September 2020.
Daily Trading Volume : $261,927,944
Market Share Percentage: 4.75%
Number of Markets: 38
6. Wanswap is a new decentralized exchange built with automated market-making (AMM) modeled after the explosively popular Uniswap and built on the Wanchain blockchain. Its basic trading functionality was derived directly from the Uniswap codebase. It was founded in December 2020 by Jack Lu, also the founder and CEO WanChain.
Daily Trading Volume : $112,705,926
Market Share Percentage: 2.04%
Number of Markets: 21
7. 1inch Exchange is a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator used to buy or sell the cryptocurrency across multiple DEXs. Orders are split across multiple DEXs to find the best market price available by using arbitrage bots. It was co-founded by Anton Bukov in March 2019.
Daily Trading Volume : $106,531,887
Market Share Percentage: 1.93%
Number of Markets: 956
8. Curve Finance is an automated market maker (AMM) protocol designed for swapping between stablecoins with low fees and slippage. It’s also a decentralized liquidity aggregator where anyone can add their assets to several different liquidity pools and earn fees. It was first introduced by Russian physicist Michael Egorov and was launched in January 2020.
Daily Trading Volume : $86,555,542
Market Share Percentage: 1.57%
Number of Markets: 21
9. KLAYswap is an automated market maker (AMM) based instant swap protocol that allows users to swap any KCT token into any other KCT token on the basis of KLAY. It was launched in October 2019.
Daily Trading Volume : $81,732,489
Market Share Percentage: 1.48%
Number of Markets: 14
10. JustSwap is the first decentralized token exchange protocol on the TRON platform that allows users to exchange any TRC20 tokens at the system price instantly. It also allows users to earn transaction fees by being a liquidity provider, even getting commission-free on the protocol. It was created by Justin Sun, founder and CEO of the Tron Foundation. It was launched in
August 2020.
Daily Trading Volume : $71,142,167
Market Share Percentage: 1.29%
Number of Markets: 24
That concludes our countdown for the top DEXs token swappers according to daily trading volume. But just like its counterpart, centralized exchanges, DEXs also comes with risks. In our next article, we will discuss the different types of cybersecurity issues that hound these exchanges.
