A Review of 2025 Web3 Narratives Through Real On-Chain Data | OKX Annual Report

When the market is dominated by grand narratives and fleeting FOMO sentiment, genuine Web3 trends and user behaviors often lie beneath the surface data. The OKX Wallet 2025 Annual Report will focus on a core question—uncovering the real preferences of on-chain users.

This report will clarify on-chain capital behavior throughout the year: the differences between small funds and whales; where capital truly exploded—on which chains, in which protocols, and in which activities; which products users actually used versus which were merely hyped concepts; how much of the yield from on-chain wealth management was actually attainable; which strategies yielded profits and which were pitfalls? More importantly—who actually made money on-chain this year? Are these profitable methods replicable? Which trends have already been "pre-positioned"?

DEX Trading Concentrated on Chains Like Solana and Ethereum

Overall, the DEX aggregator market size surpassed one trillion dollars in 2025. Leveraging its advantages in multi-chain asset routing and wallet-side entry points, the OKX DEX aggregator saw sustained growth in trading volume. Driven by the MEME coin trading frenzy, on-chain DEX trading activity experienced a significant concentration and surge in February. From a temporal distribution perspective, February became one of the most concentrated months for DEX volume throughout the year, with a single-day peak trading volume approaching $2 billion, exhibiting typical "event-driven" explosive characteristics. While trading scale rapidly increased, the structural differentiation of DEX volume across different public chains also became clearer.

From a public chain distribution perspective, DEX trading volume was primarily concentrated across five mainstream public chains: Solana, Ethereum, BSC, Base, and Polygon. Among these, Solana performed most prominently, with its annual DEX trading volume approximately 1.6 times that of Ethereum, establishing itself as the primary network for MEME coin trading. This phenomenon not only reflects users' heightened sensitivity to transaction costs, confirmation speed, and execution success rates in a high-frequency, sentiment-driven trading environment but is also closely related to Solana's advantages in asset issuance efficiency, transaction concurrency capability, and user interaction experience. The choice of many MEME projects to launch primarily on Solana locked trading behavior within the same network from the asset generation stage, further amplifying the clustering effect of on-chain volume.

As a mature ecosystem, Ethereum, with its long-accumulated asset depth, mainstream projects, and stable liquidity, still forms the core foundation for DEX trading. Its volume structure leans more towards diversified assets, stablecoin trading, and relatively rational allocation needs. In contrast, BSC's position is not built on deep ecosystem sedimentation but rather attracts a large number of price-sensitive and newly entering users to participate in trading through its low barriers to entry, low costs, and strong traffic mobilization capabilities. During periods of highly concentrated MEME market activity, BSC could achieve trading volumes close to Ethereum's in the short term by relying on traffic efficiency and rapid diffusion mechanisms. This indicates that, under specific market conditions, user scale and trading frequency can partially offset the gap in ecosystem maturity when it comes to amplifying volume.

Base and Polygon are in the subsequent tier, with overall trading volumes relatively limited. Their growth paths rely more on clear narrative drivers, breakout applications, or phased incentive cycles. Compared to the aforementioned chains, this tier still shows significant shortcomings in user stickiness and liquidity depth. However, during specific windows, by hosting a single hot application or thematic asset, they can still rapidly aggregate trading volume, contributing phased increments to the overall DEX market.

Public Chain Distribution Structure of OKX DEX Trading Volume

Trading scenarios are gradually becoming a key factor influencing the evolution of the DEX landscape. Trading scenarios represented by MEME coins have accelerated the concentration of trading traffic towards a few public chains. This is underpinned by mechanisms such as rapid asset issuance, social propagation, and short-cycle speculation, which not only amplify single-chain trading volume but also reshape cross-chain capital flows and DEX type selection. Subsequent chapters will dissect data around MEME trading to further analyze its impact on the phased evolution of the DEX landscape.

Building on this, the DEX trading landscape is shifting from "single main chain dominance" to "coexistence of multiple tiers with clear division of labor." High-performance public chains carry high-frequency trading, mature ecosystems handle asset sedimentation and risk pricing, while traffic-oriented and emerging public chains play an amplification role during specific market conditions. This differentiation requires trading platforms to possess cross-chain and scenario coordination capabilities. Relying on its multi-chain coverage and aggregated architecture, OKX DEX connects different tiers of public chains and trading scenarios under a unified entry point, helping users efficiently respond to short-term market movements and long-term allocation needs.

Number of Active DEX Trading Addresses Increased 2.6x Year-over-Year

In 2025, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) continued to function as the core infrastructure for Web3 trading. As public chain ecosystems matured, trading infrastructure improved, and the timeliness of on-chain asset execution increased, DEXs gradually became the preferred choice for more users to conduct asset trades. Active DEX users showed significant growth throughout the year, with trading activities gradually expanding from a few mainstream assets to more new project tokens, while activity levels and trading frequency also increased notably.

Compared to last year, the number of active DEX user addresses on OKX Wallet increased by 2.6 times year-over-year in 2025, with the increment primarily concentrated on a few hot public chains. As project launches and trading hotspots continuously emerged, user behavior showed clear on-chain clustering characteristics, with trading activity rapidly concentrating on specific networks and projects, forming new market structures and rhythms.

The MEME coin ecosystem is one of the most representative narratives in the DEX market. Despite the market correction at year-end, MEME trading remained highly speculative. The most active MEME users on-chain are highly sensitive to price volatility and market rhythms, pursuing fast, hot trading opportunities, and are influenced by community activity and social media buzz. Their trading needs center on speed, flexibility, and on-chain information insight: transactions need to be fast, with high success rates, and support continuous operations; simultaneously, on-chain metrics such as insider wallet tracking, developer holding dynamics, token distribution, and candlestick chart analysis can help users judge capital flows, concentration of hype, and potential market manipulation, thereby aiding short-term follow-ups and high-frequency speculation.

Looking at the annual distribution of MEME coin trading, Solana and BSC are the two most concentrated public chains, but they differ in trading volume and asset structure. The projects with the highest annual trading volume on Solana included TRUMP, MELANIA, swarms, BUZZ, VINE, STONKS, ai16z, LIBRA, etc. The frequent project turnover and fast trading pace make Solana the core network for high-frequency MEME trading. The projects with the highest trading volume on BSC were mainly Broccoli, TST, NODE, Binance Life, KOGE, etc., relying more on community diffusion and traffic drivers to quickly gather activity during specific windows. Although the sustained trading capacity of individual assets is limited, BSC, relying on low barriers and a large user base, can still form a stable participation foundation.

Under these structural differences, the annual mainstream MEME trading volume on Solana was approximately 3.6 times that of BSC. Overall, MEME user growth concentrated on a few hot networks. Solana is more suitable for carrying high-frequency, fast-rotating trading scenarios, while BSC holds advantages in traffic-driven participation and short-cycle speculation. Together, they constitute the important arenas for current MEME trading.

Trading Situation of Some Mainstream MEME Coins on Solana and BSC

Notably, OKX launched the Exchange-Built-In DEX in November 2025. Users can now directly purchase on-chain tokens like those on Solana, Base, X Layer, etc., using USDT/USDC from their trading accounts, without needing cross-chain transfers, withdrawals, or managing mnemonics or private keys. The built-in DEX adopts a self-custody design, with OKX covering Gas fees, offering a lighter and smoother experience.

Information asymmetry and time lags directly translate into profits for MEME users. Therefore, Wallet continuously listened to community feedback in 2025, improving user experience through hundreds of detail optimizations and core upgrades. For example, new token listing speed was reduced to under 1.5 seconds; one-click transaction confirmation simplified operations and accelerated token purchase pace; token page loading, charts, trading functions, and overall speed were comprehensively upgraded to industry-leading levels; AI narrative features were added, etc.

Ethereum and TRON Remain the Primary Scenarios for Cross-Chain Activity

In 2025, cross-chain funds from OKX DEX aggregator users were highly concentrated between a few high-liquidity public chains. Ethereum and TRON constituted the most core capital channels, with their combined bidirectional cross-chain volume accounting for nearly half of the total annual flow. This structure benefits, on one hand, from TRON's low-fee, high-throughput on-chain characteristics and its efficiency in USDT transfer scenarios, and on the other hand, relies on Ethereum's rich ecosystem resources, making TRON an important node for users in emerging markets for small payments and capital turnover.

Bidirectional cross-chain volume between Ethereum and Arbitrum accounted for over a quarter, forming a high-frequency loop between the main chain and L2. Users often allocate funds on low-fee chains like Arbitrum to participate in short-term trading or DeFi activities, then flow back to the Ethereum mainnet for asset sedimentation and security. Overall, the four major chain pairs—Ethereum to TRON, TRON to Ethereum, Ethereum to Arbitrum, Arbitrum to Ethereum—collectively contributed about 70% of cross-chain capital flow, indicating that cross-chain behavior is highly concentrated on a few core paths.

From a directional perspective, in most bidirectional chain pairs, the proportion of funds flowing out of Ethereum was higher than the inflow, reflecting its hub status as a source of capital. Between Ethereum and Arbitrum, the inflow slightly exceeded the outflow, reflecting an active pattern of some L2 funds returning to the main chain. Simultaneously, one-way flows from Ethereum to emerging L2s accounted for over 10%, indicating that main chain capital continues to spill over into scaling ecosystems.

In contrast, cross-chain proportions for high-performance public chains like Solana, BSC, and Base were relatively low, collectively accounting for about 13% of total flow, serving more for strategic allocation or short-term operational functions. However, there is still relatively independent bidirectional capital flow between Solana and BSC, with its scale approaching the cross-chain proportion between Ethereum and Solana. This shows that independent capital allocation needs are beginning to form between emerging public chains, not relying entirely on Ethereum as the sole hub.

Overall, cross-chain capital exhibits a structural characteristic of "high concentration on main paths, continuous spillover to extension paths." Building on this, the OKX DEX aggregator, by covering 25+ cross-chain bridges, 40+ public chains, and 400+ DEXs, and relying on X Routing smart routing for optimal pricing across multiple DEXs while providing market data, limit orders, and KYT security detection, offers users a more efficient and controllable trading experience in complex cross-chain environments.

DeFi Investment is Shifting Towards More Structured Portfolio Allocation

In the on-chain environment, lending and staking protocols remain relatively stable and sustainable sources of yield, and capital continues to concentrate towards these top protocols. This indirectly reflects that more and more users are choosing OKX DeFi Earn products as one of their main entry points for participating in on-chain DeFi. Looking at the amount users invest, capital is primarily concentrated in large, stable, and mature top protocols. Among the Top 10 protocols by user investment amount, the amount invested in Aave V3 exceeded $200 million, significantly leading other protocols, demonstrating its core position and high trust level in the lending sector. The invested amounts in the remaining Top 10 protocols all exceeded $20 million, presenting an overall distribution structure of "stable top, orderly middle."

The Top 10 protocols cover multiple DeFi sub-sectors, including traditional lending (Aave V3, Compound V3, Morpho, Fluid), staking and restaking (Lido, Puffer Finance), DEX and liquidity protocols (Uniswap V3), and emerging chain-native lending protocols (NAVI Protocol, Echelon Market, Echo Protocol). This structure indicates that users are not placing singular bets on high-risk strategies in their capital allocation but are making combined investments around mature protocols and deterministic yield paths.

Among them, emerging chain-native lending protocols like NAVI Protocol, Echelon Market, and Echo Protocol simultaneously entered the Top 10, indicating that users are actively allocating part of their capital to ecosystems with stronger incentives and less saturated competition. Multi-chain allocation has become an important way to obtain incremental yield. Finally, the coexistence of Lido and Puffer Finance reflects the layered allocation characteristics of staking capital. Users choose mature, stable staking solutions for core funds while enhancing overall yield elasticity through new mechanisms like restaking. These phenomena collectively indicate that DeFi investment is shifting from single strategies towards more structured portfolio allocation.

Overall, high-amount investments flow more towards protocols with higher security, sustainability, and mechanism maturity, reflecting users' emphasis on risk control and long-term viability in DeFi investment. Whether you have experience with on-chain yield farming or not, OKX Wallet's DeFi Earn provides a one-stop on-chain subscription tool, allowing everyone to easily participate in various subscription activities of top protocols like Aave and Morpho. While receiving native protocol rewards, there is also an opportunity to enjoy additional rewards configured by DeFi Earn for users. Regarding funds, all operations require user authorization, ensuring funds only interact directly with the protocol side for participation in staking.

xBTC is the Fastest-Growing DeFi Investment Product This Year

Looking at the distribution of investment products users put their money into, stablecoins remain the core underlying asset for DeFi investment. Among the Top 10 investment products by user investment amount, USDC and USDT lead the list, continuing to play foundational roles in liquidity management, lending collateral, and strategy execution. Simultaneously, the emergence of yield-enhanced stablecoin products like USDS, Usual Boosted USDC, and Relend USDC also indicates that users are gradually transitioning from "passive holding" to "yield optimization" in their stablecoin allocation.

Among non-stablecoin assets, ETH and SOL remain the primary underlying asset allocations, reflecting user recognition of the long-term value and ecosystem participation of mainstream public chain assets. Notably, xBTC became one of the fastest-growing DeFi investment products this year and entered the Top 10 assets by user investment amount. This change indicates that users are participating in DeFi through on-chain wrapped BTC assets, retaining BTC value exposure while seeking additional yield opportunities, reflecting the acceleration of the "Bitcoin DeFi-ization" trend.

Furthermore, the entry of emerging or restaking assets like SUI and sAVAX into the Top 10 also shows that, beyond core asset allocation, users are beginning to experiment with assets possessing phased growth potential to enhance overall yield elasticity.

From a participation behavior perspective, the metric of "number of investors" presents a different focus compared to capital scale. Currently, due to relatively low barriers, clear logic, and high usage frequency, lending remains the main entry point for users into DeFi. Among lending protocols, NAVI Protocol, Aave V3, and Compound V3 ranked as the Top 3 by number of investors. This distribution reflects that users prefer to enter on-chain financial activities through mature or native lending protocols. Even if individual user investment sizes are limited, a broader participation base forms considerable overall activity.

In terms of liquidity protocols, Momentum, Uniswap V3, and Hyperion became the Top 3 by number of investors. Compared to lending protocols, liquidity protocols emphasize trading participation and fee revenue, attracting a large number of small to medium-scale users. This further illustrates that the user count dimension reflects participation breadth, while the amount dimension reflects capital depth. Together, they form a complete picture of DeFi usage structure.

DeFi Investment Still Favors Mainstream Public Chains Like Ethereum

Within the OKX Wallet DeFi Earn ecosystem, users tend to allocate capital to public chains with high TVL, deep liquidity, and stable yields to achieve efficient yield farming and reduce slippage risk. Looking at the Top 10 public chains where users invested the most in DeFi, Ethereum still ranks first, continuing to serve as the main arena for core asset sedimentation and high-value DeFi activities. Its advantages in TVL, liquidity depth, and protocol maturity make it the preferred network for large capital engaging in lending, staking, and stable strategy allocation.

Simultaneously, high-performance or emerging public chains like AVAX, SUI, and SOL ranked high, reflecting users' willingness to allocate part of their capital to lower-cost, higher-incentive on-chain