Recently, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou posted on platform X stating, “The first on-chain DEX incubated by Bybit, Byreal, will go live at the end of this month. It started from scratch and was born in the Solana ecosystem.”

It points out that the special aspect of Byreal lies in: 1/ Collaboration between CEX and DEX. Byreal is not just “another DEX”. It combines CEX-level liquidity with DeFi’s inherent transparency. This is true hybrid finance. More CEX + DEX projects will be launched in the future. 2/ Unified liquidity and speed using RFQ + CLMM routing design. Byreal will provide users with low slippage and MEV protection Swap exchange transactions at an extraordinary speed.

According to official information, the Byreal testnet will go live on June 30, and the mainnet is expected to launch in the third quarter.

Bybit is not the first centralized exchange to enter the DEX space. With the continuous growth of decentralized trading platforms, the improvement of DEX in terms of liquidity and user activity is gradually narrowing the gap with CEX.

DEX market share is rising, and Solana has become one of the main choices.

According to DeFiLlama data, the trading volume of DEX has shown a steady growth trend. In May 2024, the monthly trading volume of DEX reached $405.3 billion, accounting for approximately 25% of the total global spot trading volume, setting a new historical record. Meanwhile, the total locked value of DEX surpassed $20 billion.

From the perspective of blockchain distribution, Ethereum remains the dominant chain, Solana ranks second, with a TVL of approximately 3.3 billion USD, of which more than half is occupied by Raydium.

Bybit selects Solana as the underlying infrastructure for Byreal, primarily based on its significant growth performance. In 2024, the trading of Meme tokens and the on-chain token issuance platforms (such as Pump.fun) on Solana saw a substantial increase in activity, driving DEX to become the main channel for token launches. Mainstream Meme assets including WIF, BOME, BONK, etc., established initial liquidity on Solana DEXs such as Raydium and Jupiter, and were subsequently listed on centralized exchanges.

Solana has maintained a high level of activity and developer growth over the past year, becoming one of the fastest-growing blockchains in the DEX ecosystem. Solana’s daily trading volume remains stable at around 80 million transactions, with a total of over 30 billion transactions, ranking among the top public chains. In contrast, Base and Sui have daily trading volumes of about 7 million and 6 million transactions respectively. Although their scale is relatively smaller, they are growing rapidly and have high levels of activity.

In terms of daily active address data, Solana’s daily active addresses average over 4 million, peaking at over 9.4 million. For centralized exchanges (CEX) seeking to expand on-chain, Solana offers a relatively mature high-performance execution environment and liquidity foundation.

The Decentralization Battle of CEX

When users choose on-chain trading products, they usually prioritize familiar platforms and a good user experience. This trend has driven leading centralized exchanges to lay out decentralized exchange products. There have been several precedents for CEX entering the decentralized trading field. Binance’s PancakeSwap based on BSC has maintained a leading position in the DEX market for a long time, OKX has launched OKX DEX, and Coinbase has supported the DEX Aerodrome based on the Base chain, with trading volume growing rapidly and market share ranking among the top.

These CEXs gradually gather market liquidity through self-built on-chain platforms or strategic partnerships, covering both on-chain and off-chain user groups. At the product level, they are also actively exploring innovative features such as dark pool trading, cross-chain aggregation, and mixed liquidity pools to enhance trading depth and execution efficiency, meeting the increasingly diversified market demand.

From the perspective of competitive landscape, CEX still maintains an advantage in overall trading volume and user scale. However, past CEX liquidity crises and risk events have increased user attention on DEX, which is decentralized, on-chain transparent, and has relatively low compliance thresholds. The competition between the two sides is becoming increasingly intense.

Based on the data above, it can be seen that emerging gameplay tends to prefer DEX with convenient and lower compliance requirements, and traffic has also shifted earlier towards on-chain products, leading to an awkward situation for some CEXs of “not getting the meat, but only a sip of soup.” To seize the first-mover advantage in the on-chain market, CEXs have to accelerate their layout to avoid continuous erosion of market share by DEX, which in turn triggers pressure on profit shrinkage.

Summary

Simon Kim, the CEO of the crypto venture capital firm Hashed, predicts that DEX trading volume may surpass CEX by 2028. With CEX increasing its investment in DEX and the current development trajectory of the DEX ecosystem, the likelihood of this prediction coming true is enhancing.

From the perspective of industry development trends, the future forms of exchanges may no longer strictly distinguish between centralization and Decentralization, and hybrid trading platforms may become a new development direction. Ultimately, the needs of trading users remain the key factor for the success or failure of a platform. Platforms that can provide stable, secure, and user-demand-compliant products will have a better chance of gaining a competitive advantage in the market.

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