On-chain weekly trading volumes drop since mid-January as Solana falters

Weekly on-chain trading volume has decreased since mid-January, gradually falling from $173 billion to roughly $90 billion last week, according to DefiLlama data. Solana’s weekly volumes suffered the largest decrease in the period.

Between Jan. 11 and 17, the trading volume registered in decentralized exchanges (DEX) reached a weekly all-time high of $173 billion. Solana was the key driver for this movement, registering over $97.5 billion in on-chain trading activity.

The following week, on-chain trading volumes remained steady, as DEXes processed nearly $171 billion. Binance Smart Chain (BSC) played a key role in this volume, with its weekly activity growing by 76% to almost $30 billion.

However, DEXes failed to hold their ground in the last week of January, with volumes dipping to nearly $120 billion, a 30% decrease.

Solana struggling

Once again, the significant movement was tied to Solana, as the network shed nearly $40 billion in weekly trading volume while other blockchains kept their volumes similar to the previous week.

The weekly volumes continued to shrink in the first week of February. DEXes totaled $107.4 billion, and Solana lost nearly $10 billion in activity. Weekly on-chain volumes fell below $100 billion for the first time in five weeks, recording only $90 billion between Feb. 8 to Feb. 14, w

Additionally, Solana has not led the weekly trading activity for the first time since early October. Traders moved nearly $30 billion on BSC compared to Solana’s $26.2 billion.

However, BSC’s momentum seems short-lived, as Solana is leading again in on-chain volume for the week starting Feb. 15.

The weekly contraction in on-chain volumes highlights how the activity in decentralized exchanges is still heavily reliant on Solana.

Still overall strong

Despite the weekly setbacks, the monthly volume of decentralized exchanges is still relatively strong compared to their centralized counterparts.

The ratio of month-to-date volume traded on decentralized and centralized platforms is 16.7% as of press time, based on on-chain data.

Despite a 3.3% pullback from last month’s peak of 20%, the percentage is still above last year’s peak of 13.9%, which was registered in October.

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