Cryptoverse: Let’s talk about DEX, baby

Since Sam Bankman-FTX, Fried's a significant centralized crypto exchange, abruptly collapsed, conventional bankers and investors have been calling for increased regulation.

On the other hand, some cryptocurrency players are emulating the original crypto vision of Satoshi Nakamoto, the person who created Bitcoin, by bypassing the financial middlemen and turning to decentralized exchanges, where traders transact peer-to-peer on the blockchain.

According to statistics from market tracker DeFi Llama, on Nov. 10, as FTX collapsed, overall daily trading volumes on DEXs, including the likes of Uniswap, jumped as high as $12 billion, their biggest level since May. However, gains have since been reversed.

According to CryptoCompare, four days later, November volumes had eclipsed the entire previous month.

In the meantime, CryptoCompare data reveals that weekly bitcoin flows from controlled exchanges, or CEXs, saw their largest-ever net outflow, with 97,805 currency moving off platforms in the seven days leading up to Nov. 13.

According to Varun Kumar, CEO of the decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Hashflow, "it is now obvious that there can be risk involved with retaining assets in a centralized company." According to data, customers are increasingly using decentralized trading platforms.

However, DEXs may not always be safer than their centralized competitors, and unskilled investors may be exposed to significant risks.

Instead of routing money through a middleman or centralized authority, users can exchange tokens directly amongst each other using blockchain-based smart contracts.

As a result, just like other decentralized finance (DeFi) or Web3 systems, there is no central authority and, for better or worse, investors are in charge of their transactions, settlements, and coin or token storage.

When compared to traditional exchanges on Wall Street, CEXs like Coinbase, Binance, and FTX operate as the middleman in transactions, making trading easier for novice investors in particular. CEXs also occasionally provide coin custody services, as did FTX.

Many centralized players have also worked to build user confidence by more transparent policies including providing evidence of their reserves.

Requests for comment from Coinbase, Binance, and FTX were not immediately fulfilled.