Now that you know the difference between a Decentralized and Centralized Exchange, here are some of the popular DEX’s. This is not a full list, but a list that can accomplish most, if not all, of your crypto needs on the most popular blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Avalance, and Binance Smart Chain.
Decentralized Exchanges are critical to the success of crypto and are at the heart of DeFi. Crypto and DeFi aim to remove a centralized power from transactions, where they can’t tell you no, or how you can or can’t spend your money. It also aims to remove the abusive practices for which the major banks have been fined billions of dollars, many times by taking advantage of their customers or taking risks with their customers’ money. If decentralized exchanges succeed, it removes the need for centralized exchanges who can freeze your account for no reason, while increasing privacy and efficiency of transactions.
You’ll notice that many of these exchanges can only be used on one chain; Uniswap for Ethereum, Jupiter for Solana, Trade Joe for Avalanche, etc. However, cross-chain DEX and aggregators are on the rise, and some of the tools we will discuss below (like THORSwap, ShapeShift) have the ability to tap into many of those protocols from one interface/app. See our DEX Aggregator post for interfaces that will help you swap tons of different assets from different blockchains. You will see a lot of THORChain mentioned by us because it is currently the best way to swap cross-chain, i.e. Bitcoin for Ethereum for Litecoin for Dogecoin–you get the idea. However, THORChain doesn’t support all assets*, so these other exchanges are needed to bridge the gap to the lesser known coins out there.
*As a long-time follower of the project, we can confidently say THORChain developers are always hard at work to add the big blockchains if not currently supported, such as Solana (at the time of this writing, THORChain has acknowledged Solana is in the works).
Uniswap (Ethereum DEX)
Uniswap is the biggest decentralized exchange by a wide margin, but it is limited to cryptocurrencies only on the Ethereum network. Put another way, you can’t trade native Bitcoin, Solana, Litecoin, or anything else that isn’t built on the Ethereum blockchain. However, most coins are built on Ethereum which is why Uniswap is so popular. It is permissionless, meaning you just connect your wallet to the Uniswap app and are able to easily swap your Ethereum based asset for another Ethereum based asset. No account needed!
See our full writeup on Uniswap and how to use it here.
THORChain (cross-chain DEX)
One of the most important exchanges out there due to it being one of the only DEX’s where you can swap native Bitcoin for native Ethereum, among other assets. This cross chain-ability is incredibly valuable for those that want to keep their assets off of centralized exchanges like Coinbase. There is no permission needed to trade your crypto, simply connect your wallet and trade! With its recent “Streaming Swaps” upgrade, fees to swap between different cryptos is now more competitive than centralized exchanges such as Coinbase. Among its other features are Lending, Savers, and Liquidity Pools.
See our full writeup on Thorchain and how to use it here.
Maya Protocol (cross-chain DEX)
This is a fork of THORChain (a spin-off of THORChain technology) into its owns chains called MAYAChain and AZTECChain. Like THORChain, you can swap between assets just by simply connecting your funded wallet! You also have the ability to earn yield through their Savers program.
See our full writeup on Maya and how to use it here (coming soon).
Chainflip (cross-chain DEX)
A new entrant to the cross-chain DEX world in late 2023, early 2024, Chainflip currently supports swaps between Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, the native FLIP token, and USDC, with Solana support said to be coming in the future. Like Thorchain, this is another important project to be able to swap between different chains without needing Coinbase. Like Thorchain, they are hard at work on reducing fees for people to exchange assets and offers very competitive rates to Thorchain and centralized exchanges. This differs from Thorchain by not requiring you to connect your wallet, and thus keeping your funds safe. More on this in the full writeup.
See our full writeup on Chainflip and how to use it here.
Jupiter (Solana DEX)
Jupiter, Raydium, and Orca are the top decentralized exchanges on the Solana network and offer user-friendly interfaces. Like many of the other DEX’s, Jupiter and Orca offer rewards for staking your Solana crypto in their liquidity pools by sharing fees that they generate from trading activity. Jupiter also acts as a DEX aggregator that can use liquidity from the other Solana DEX’s.
See our full writeup on Jupiter and how to use it here.
Trader Joe (Avalanche DEX)
Trader Joe is the largest DEX on Avalanche. It offers a “one-stop-shop” for decentralized trading on the Avalanche (symbol AVAX) blockchain. You can swap tokens, yield farm, provide liquidity for rewards, as well as supply, borrow and shop for NFTs.
See our full writeup on Trader Joe and how to use it here.
PancakeSwap (Binance Smart Chain DEX)
PancakeSwap is similar to Uniswap, but built on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Because of this, the fees are significantly lower than Uniswap, but you are limited to trading Binance Smart Chain-based assets. In addition to swapping BSC cryptos, you can also provide liquidity by locking your crypto into the protocol and earn rewards from fees that PancakeSwap collects, or yield farm where you can stake your crypto and earn different coins as rewards.
