Providing access to financial services to everyone is one of the primary goals of the cryptocurrency industry. The first step in making this a possibility is the development of decentralized exchanges. DEXs allow anyone with an internet connection and a crypto wallet to buy and sell digital assets. Read on to learn what decentralized exchanges are and discover the top decentralized exchanges on the market today.
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- What are decentralized exchanges?
- What are the best decentralized exchanges on the market in 2024?
- Stormgain
- dYdX
- ApeX PRo
- OKX DEX
- Curve
- Balancer
- Changelly
- PancakeSwap
- SushiSwap
- Bancor
- Dodo
- Uniswap
- What are the different types of decentralized exchange?
- Which is the best decentralized exchange (DEX)?
- Are DEXs the future?
- Decentralized exchanges are here to stay
- Frequently asked questions
What are decentralized exchanges?
Decentralized exchanges are online trading platforms built on open blockchains that allow for the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies without the need for an intermediary or third party, such as a bank.
A decentralized exchange differs from a traditional stock exchange or a centralized cryptocurrency exchange. With a DEX, users hold power to make decisions regarding the exchange. Services are separated amongst users rather than held by a central authority. This kind of power distribution aligns decentralized exchanges with the principle of cryptocurrencies, which aim to promote decentralization and financial sovereignty above all.
Further, decentralized crypto exchanges are more resilient and more private than traditional finance and centralized exchanges. Users are not required to reveal their identity through a Know Your Customer (KYC) process. Instead, they only need to connect their crypto wallets, look for the crypto they want, and start trades.
Decentralized exchanges mimic the principle of crypto and financial freedom in their operations. All DEXs are on public blockchains. All utilize different aspects of blockchain technology, like smart contracts, tokens, and layers. However, each decentralized exchange differs from another based on its individual features. This varies from the code used to build the DEX to how users interact with the platform.
How important are DEXs?
DEXs are an essential component of financial activity in an increasingly digital world. A large chunk of the global population is unbanked. Anyone with an internet connection can use a DEX, making finance more accessible.
Furthermore, the world is de-dollarizing. The global dollar-denominated debt is decreasing. With the United States Dollar losing global hegemony, many people all over the world are under the threat of having their very way of life drastically altered.
Many people will need alternatives to transact if there is not a global reserve currency. Businesses and their customers will need a stable currency. In the current financial climate, financial institutions (e.g., banks) are pivoting away from centralized exchanges and businesses.
With these factors in mind, it will be difficult for users to gain access to cryptocurrencies to transact in the event of a financial crisis. DEXs solve these problems. Not only do they provide access to cryptocurrency, but they are available 24/7. This ensures global equity for anyone in need of cryptocurrency, despite socioeconomic status or time zone.
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The scope of DEXs goes far beyond trading. Crypto has real-world use cases, so much so that many fail to see the forest through the trees. A dollar shortage or limited access to a stable currency can limit a country’s ability to trade and expand, which inhibits the average person. DEXs offer a new avenue, as they provide access to currency in a decentralized way.
What are the best decentralized exchanges on the market in 2024?
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Stormgain
StormGain has launched StormGain DEX. Users will be happy to know you can now trade your assets directly on the Ethereum blockchain. StormGain has announced later support for the Binance Smart Chain and Tron Coin. On their flagship DEX, you can trade with user friendly DeFi technology. Using this technology means no additional commissions for depositing or withdrawing funds. Users need only pay the blockchain network fee.
Using Stormgain DEX, users need only pay the blockchain network fee. There are no commissions or withdrawal fees for using Stormgain DEX.
dYdX
Users can participate in margin and perpetual trading on dYdX. The exchange is built on StarkEx, an Ethereum layer-2 solution. The DEX utilizes zero-knowledge-proof technology to ensure decentralization, privacy, and security. The exchange recently announced plans to move its function onto its own blockchain in the Cosmos Ecosystem. Despite the impending move to another chain, the DEX will continue using order books and matching models in its trading function. It will also maintain the use of the exchange’s native token and Hedgies, the platform’s NFTs.
A non-custodial, decentralized margin product called the dYdX Perpetual provides synthetic exposure to a range of assets. Independent auditing was done on the Starkware Perpetual smart contracts by PeckShield. Trades are settled in an L2 system, which periodically publishes ZK (zero-knowledge) proofs to an Ethereum smart contract to demonstrate the validity of state transitions within L2.
-No deposit fees
-Maker fees: 0%-0.02%
-Taker fees: 0%-0.05%
- Clear interface
- Quick transactions
- Large selection of popular types of trading orders
- A limited selection of margin trading pairs
- A limited selection of swaps
1. Sign in to your web3 wallet, like MetaMask.
2. Connect your wallet to dYdX.
3. Deposit at least $500 or more.
ApeX PRo
ApeX Pro is a non-custodial, multichain, crypto exchange that offers traders access to derivatives crypto trading, specifically perpetual futures contracts, by utilizing the platforms’ scalability engine, StarkEx, an Ethereum layer-2 solution. ApeX users benefit from a no-KYC registration process, which lets them keep a high degree of privacy when trading. Further, the platform offers zero gas fees for trading. It gives leverage and minimal slippage to users via its order book mechanism.
Additionally, Apex Pro offers a revenue-sharing plan. A Buy & Burn Pool (BBP) is incorporated into ApeX Pro’s infrastructure design and is primarily used to engage in a routine buyback and burn strategy to ensure $BANA price stability and value growth. The staking program and pools will receive a portion of the fees channeled to the BBP in USDC.
-Maker fee: 0.02%
-Taker fee: 0.05%
- Leverage up to 20x.
- Mobile App iOS/Android: ApeX Pro
- Testnet – demo trading account with no risk
- The possibility of decentralized trading in perpetual contracts for top cryptocurrencies
- Limited choice of trading instruments
- Smart contract risk
1. Connect a web3 wallet, such as MetaMask.
2. Confirm the terms and conditions agreement.
3. Register username and email (not available for U.S. users).
4. Deposit crypto.
OKX DEX
Trading on OKX DEX offers users a more seamless trading experience and lower trading costs. In contrast to open blockchains like Ethereum, OKC concentrates on offering a better, more specific infrastructure for trading DApps and DEXs. If you don’t have native tokens to complete a transaction, you can use the OKX DEX Gas Station to quickly exchange USDT, USDC, DAI, WETH, and other popular tokens for native tokens to cover the transaction fees.
OKX’s X Routing algorithm finds the best price across every DEX. This directly lowers the expenses associated with installing trading DApps for developers and indirectly lowers trading fees for customers. OKX DEX is a decentralized exchange built on top of OKX’s enterprise blockchain, OKC.
Only blockchain network gas fees.
- Low trading fees
- Aggregates the best price across multiple chains and DEXs
- Available worldwide
- Low trading volume
1. Sign up for OKX account (you will need an email).
2. Make a deposit into your OKX account on the OKX app (at least $50).
3. Or buy $50 worth of crypto.
4. Claim Mystery Box reward.
Curve
Curve mainly specializes in the trade of stablecoins. One of the perks is the ability to use whatever you have invested in the Curve platform on other apps in the DeFi ecosystem. A function called DeFi composability. Also, the platform uses CRV, its native token, for governance and as an incentive vehicle for its users.
Users can buy or earn CRV through yield farming. When users deposit assets into a liquidity pool, they are rewarded with CRV tokens. The pool readjusts its internal price to the region with the most liquidity as trades are made without incurring losses for the pool. Additionally, crypto pools have variable fees that can run from 0.04% to 0.40%. Users who have vote-locked their CRVs receive 50% of the trading fee.
0.04% on all liquidity pools.
- Low fees
- Non-custodial
- Many liquidity pools
- Not very beginner friendly
- If there is an issue with a linked DeFi pool, Curve pools might be affected
1. Sign in to your web3 wallet.
2. Go to the curve.fi website.
3. Connect your wallet.
4. Select a pool.
5. Deposit or Swap.
Balancer
Balancer is a DEX that allows users to trade cryptocurrencies and acts as a liquidity provider platform and an automated portfolio manager. Balancer was originally built on the Ethereum blockchain. The DEX uses the automated market-making mechanism to establish prices. The platform has two faces, an exchange for traders and an investment fund. This fund allows liquidity providers to own a piece of the platform, should they choose. Just like other AMM-based DEXs, Balancer has liquidity pools.
Here, people can deposit their crypto assets and help manage the ecosystem, especially the price. 100% of all BAL fees collected are shared with holders of veBALs. The price for all other tokens is USDC, with 35% going to the DAO. A boosted USD balancer pool known as bb-a-USD is distributed to BAL holders in the amount of 65%.
The minimum swap fee is 0.0001%, while the maximum swap fee is 10%.
- Custom automated market makers
- Multi-asset pools
- High risk of scam tokens
- Not very user friendly
1. Sign into MetaMask or a web3 wallet equivalent.
2. Go to balancer.fi website.
3. Select Explore Pools.
4. Connect wallet.
5. Select Swap.
Changelly
One of the most interesting products that Changelly has is DeFi swap. There are no intermediaries. The user interacts with a smart contract, which defines the rules of the exchange. No middlemen, just transparency, trust, and decentralization. Smart Router technology gathers and provides the best rates on the market for crypto-to-crypto exchanges. Changelly provides their own private liquidity to get the best out of the DeFi sector.
Changelly DeFi Swap is a decentralized exchange aggregator that connects to over 100 different decentralized exchanges. It enables 3600+ token swaps on the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Polygon, Fantom, and Optimism networks.
0.25% commission
- Low fees
- Live support
- Non-custodial
- Fast transaction execution
- Unavailable in many countries (including the U.S.)
- Fiat fees
1. Go to Changelly.com
2. Select the crypto asset that you want to exchange and click on Exchange now button
3. Click on Connect wallet button on the top right corner
4. Enter the wallet address or scan the QR code
5. Swap crypto, invite friends and get bonus of $10 for each friend invited
PancakeSwap
PancakeSwap utilizes the AMM model to make decentralized cryptocurrency trading possible. At the same time, liquidity providers can deposit their crypto assets into liquidity pools, thereby creating liquidity for the DEX. In addition to traditional crypto trading and buying, PancakeSwap gives its users access to additional services. Pancake users can take part in yield farming, staking, and trading NFTs.
Every time someone trades on PancakeSwap, they pay a fixed 0.25% fee for each hop (swap) in each Exchange V2 liquidity pool, of which 0.17% is added back to the Liquidity Pool in the form of trading fees.
0.25% for all liquidity pools.
- Low slippage
- Low transaction costs
- High transaction volume
- Network congestion
- High-risk for scam tokens
1. Sign in to your Metamask or web3 wallet.
2. Go to Pancakeswap website.
3. Connect wallet.
4. Select Trade, Earn, or NFT.
SushiSwap
SushiSwap was created as a clone of UniSwap. The platform has unique features like a liquidity mining offering that attracts its own liquidity providers. It also lets its users take part in governance decisions through the platform’s native token, SUSHI. Initially built on the Ethereum blockchain, SushiSwap is currently present on 14 other chains. These include Polygon, Arbitrium, Moonbeam, Optimism, and Avalanche.
On the exchange, users are charged a 0.3% trade fee for each transaction. The liquidity providers who supply liquidity for that pool receive 0.25% of the trade fee. The balance of the pool is increased.
Any remaining trade fee money is donated to a pool called SushiBar. When the reward distribution command is issued, the SushiBar contract purchases all of the fees from all of the pools and sells them for sushi (via SushiSwap).
0.3% fee on trades.
- Simple user interface
- Platform revenue sharing
- Technology not up-to-date when compared to competitors
- Smart contract risk
1. Sign in to a web3 wallet.
2. Select a blockchain.
3. Go to sushi.com.
4. Connect wallet.
5. Choose an asset.
Bancor
The Bancor protocol is a decentralized exchange platform that allows for the instant conversion of crypto assets. It operates on the Ethereum blockchain and uses the AMM model. Unlike other DEXs, Bancor looks to provide returns to liquidity providers, even small and micro-cap coins. That way, the DEX hopes to provide access to many other cryptocurrencies that may be inaccessible through other decentralized exchanges.
Each trade that is deposited into a liquidity pool’s reserves is subject to a percentage fee. By depositing tokens into a pool and holding its Pool Token, any user can serve as a liquidity provider to a pool and earn a portion of its trading fees.
ERC20 or EOS tokens called “pool tokens” stand in for ownership interests in a liquidity pool. The cost of a pool’s Pool Token rises as fees are accumulated in it.Liquidity can be added without permission to a Bancor pool.
Fees on Bancor are set by liquidity providers, and therefore, varies between liquidity pools.
- Impermanent loss protection
- Supports numerous tokens
- Single-sided deposits
- Third-party centralized trading platforms
- Not very user-friendly
1. Sign in to Web3 wallet, like Metamask,
2. Go to bancor.network website.
3. Connect wallet.
4. Select Trade or Pools.
Dodo
DODO is a cryptocurrency exchange built on Ethereum and BNB Chain. Its unique algorithm is known as the ‘Proactive Market Maker Algorithm.’ The algorithm is used to provide better price finding and liquidity when compared to other AMMs. DODO also has a key feature called SmartTrade. This enables a decentralized liquidity aggregation service that routes to and compares liquidity sources to quote the optimal swap rate for trading tokens.
0.3% transaction fee per trade.
- Low transaction fees
- Highly accurate pricing
- No minimum deposit for liquidity providers
- Impermanent loss protection
- Adoption and TVL continue to drop
1. Choose a Web3 wallet like Metamask.
2. Go to dodowx.io website.
3. Connect to the app.
4. Select Exchange or Bridge.
Uniswap
Uniswap, the biggest decentralized exchange in terms of trading volumes. The platform facilitates crypto trading while utilizing the power of automated market-making in its trade functions and price determination. Originally built on the Ethereum blockchain, the platform has since moved to other blockchain ecosystems and layer-2s. It is compatible with ERC-20 tokens. Uniswap runs using two smart contracts. The first is the exchange contract, which facilitates token swaps. The second is the factory contract, used when adding new tokens to the platform.
This DEX takes a 0.3% trading fee on all trades. Swapping fees are deposited into liquidity reserves. This raises the value of liquidity tokens by acting as a dividend to all liquidity providers proportional to their share of the pool. Fees are collected by removing a proportional share of the underlying reserves by burning liquidity tokens.
0.30% trading fees.
- Adequate liquidity
- No registrations
- Friendly UX
- Gas fees
- High-risk of scam tokens
1. Select a Web3 wallet like Metamask.
2. Go to the Uniswap website.
3. Connect your wallet.
4. Trade.
What are the different types of decentralized exchange?
In terms of functionality and pricing, there are currently three main types of DEXs.
- Automated Market Makers (AMMs) are the first and most common. They utilize algorithms to determine crypto asset prices in real-time. Peculiar about them is the fact that they have no order book that is known from traditional exchanges.
- Next are DEXs that use on-chain order books. These types of exchanges record all possible trades for a particular crypto asset on an order book. Therefore, the interaction of willing buyers and sellers on the exchange’s order book determines the market price of the assets. Further, the trading information on an on-chain order book DEX is on the blockchain, but assets remain off-chain in user wallets.
- Another type of DEX utilizes off-chain order books. Most of the time, this implies going against the use of blockchain, which means that some off-chain order books decentralized exchanges use a centralized authority instead when processing transactions. After the transactions are in the order book, the actual asset transaction settles on-chain, which means blockchains are for settlement but not for clearing trades.
- Lastly, we have so-called DEX aggregators. These decentralized exchanges increase liquidity and trading options for their users by compiling data from different DEXs in real-time. In this case, traders don’t have to compare data from different platforms but instead can access all information in one place, thereby getting the best price execution.
Which is the best decentralized exchange (DEX)?
Platform |
Best Feature |
Fees |
Coins |
Bonuses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
StormGain DEX | Sign Up |
No verification needed |
No additional commissions for depositing or withdrawing funds |
BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, ERC-20, multi-asset support including POW and POS coins and tokens |
No |
dYdX | Sign-up |
Free monthly trading option |
No fees for deposits or withdrawals. Perpetual trades are free for everyone, up to $100,000 every month. |
ETH, BTC, SUSHI, ATOM, YFI, CRV, AVAX, MATIC, MKR, SOL, ZRX, FIL, UMA, AAVE, UNI, COMP, SNX, 1INCH, ALGO, LINK, DOT, XMR, ZEC, DOGE, ADA, BCH, EOS, LTC |
No bonus for new users |
APEX Pro | Sign-up |
Trade-to-earn activity |
Transaction fee: 0.1% |
BANA, USDC, BTC, ETH, XRP, CATOM, and DOGE |
Regular activities with airdrops, bonuses and rewards for users |
Uniswap | Sign-up |
Adequate liquidity on many trading pairs |
0.3% fee for swapping tokens |
ERC-20 tokens |
No |
Curve | Sign-up |
Yield farming |
0.04% trading fee |
ERC-20 stablecoins, WBTC, ETH, FRAX, AVAX, multiple asset support |
No |
Balancer | Sign-up |
Versatile automated market maker |
Pool fees are between 0.0001% to 10% |
ERC-20 tokens |
No |
PancakeSwap | Sign-up |
Low transactions cost |
0.25% trading fees |
BEP-20 tokens |
No |
Sushiswap | Sign-up |
Staking and farming |
0.3% trading fees |
ERC-20 |
No |
Bancor | Sign-up |
Impermanent loss protection |
No trading or withdrawal fees from the Bancor protocol itself, each pool is set with a specific trading fee paid to the liquidity provider |
ERC-20 |
No |
DODO | Sign-up |
Smart trade |
0.3% transaction fee |
ERC-20 and EVM compatible chain tokens |
No |
OKX DEX | Sign-Up |
Aggregates orders across multiple exchanges and chains. |
N/A |
10+ chains, 100+ DEX and 100,000+ coins |
No |
Are DEXs the future?
Decentralized exchanges promise more autonomy and security than centralized exchanges. With 2022 demonstrating the inherent weaknesses in CEXs (namely, their centralization), decentralized exchanges will likely only become more prominent in years to come.
Not only are banks losing trust in CEXs, but so are their customers. A natural alternative to this situation is DEXs. With them, you do not have the risk of being a creditor, as you alone hold your crypto. DEXs can not go bankrupt.
The ftx collapse is a direct double indictment of the regulatory apparatus. first, users were pushed onto offshore jurisdictions because of the complete lack of operational clarity. second, sam was deep in bed with the “protectors”, and they didn’t do a thing. Resounding failure.
Foobar, DeFi and NFT founder: Twitter
The risk-to-reward ratio is easy to compare. Given the state of CEXs (following the FTX collapse in November 2022), it makes sense that DEXs will see increased usage over time.
Decentralized exchanges are here to stay
Yet, as with any other innovation in the crypto space, users need to research any decentralized exchange before trading. As a rule of thumb, make sure to invest only what you are willing to lose. Only trade on decentralized trading venues with code audited by third-party smart contract auditors.
As a result, you will benefit from increased security. While they are not perfect, DEXs do have some benefits over CEXs and are likely to become increasingly popular as crypto adoption and education grow.
Frequently asked questions
How are DEXs really decentralized?
What is the difference between DEX platforms and DeFi platforms?
Are DEX sites safe to use?
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