Data & Insights: DEX to CEX ratio Skyrockets; Polymarket US Volumes Too

DEX > CEX

• Decentralized spot trading put in another impressive month in September, doing nearly $200 billion in volume. Uniswap and PancakeSwap remain leaders, accounting for more than 62% of the market.
  • The strong performance has also pushed the DEX-to-CEX ratio up to 25% in the month, up 5 percentage points from the start of the year.
• Centralized exchange volumes have suffered this year, largely trending around the $30 billion-a-day range.
  • Despite the strong month, spot crypto trading is back to February levels and down 20% from January.
• The mix of assets being traded has also strongly diversified. Tokenized real-world assets have grown steadily, with market cap following. RWAs have grown to $120 billion, up from $50 billion at the start of the year.
  • Stocks are making up an increasing portion of onchain RWA transfers, partly supported by stock-paired memecoins, the largest being AI inu paired with tokenized NVDA stock.
  • As stocks continue to trade more onchain and markets come up with more innovative ways of incentivizing more tokenization, TVL is set to continue to grow aggressively.

Electing the World

• We are entering full-swing election season across the world. Polymarket election markets have gathered nearly $150 million in volume in the last month. Despite US midterms being a month away, other elections worldwide have gained speed.
  • Elections in Russia, Brazil, and France have accounted for $90 million in volume in the last month. These elections have spanned different cycles: Russia’s parliamentary election just concluded, Brazil’s has just started, and France’s election won’t be for another few months, in April of 2027. Traders are increasingly taking positions well ahead of election day, rather than concentrating on imminent events.
  • The growth of international markets has been a positive sign for Polymarket. While US elections have driven most of the historical volume, offshore elections are proving just as capable of generating meaningful liquidity.
• US midterm elections are just under 30 days away, so volume will likely shift back to favor US elections as people speculate on whether Republicans can retain control of both chambers of Congress.
  • With more elections under its belt, Polymarket has been relatively accurate in calling winners, but secondary factors like seat counts and vote shares are closer. The US midterms will be a good gauge of how well predictors have dialed in on state- and district-level outcomes.

USDe-ja Vu

• Ethena’s USDe supply currently stands at $4.9 billion, up 27% from last month.
  • In this period, USDe climbed from the sixth-largest to the fourth-largest stablecoin, passing USD1 and DAI.
  • Despite the recent growth, USDe supply still sits 67% below the $14.8 billion all-time high set in October 2025.
• Ethena can thank Robinhood (RH) Chain for doing most of the heavy lifting early in the stablecoin’s supply recovery.
  • USDe’s balance on Robinhood Chain grew from $18 million in early July to $206 million by August 1st.
  • Without it, July would have been another month of the year-long bleed for USDe as it lost $725 million everywhere outside RH Chain.
  • In September, USDe supply on RH Chain was fairly flat in the ~$330 million range. RH Chain now holds ~6.7% of total USDe supply.
• The broader growth catalyst for USDe recently likely came from the derivatives backdrop.
  • USDe’s yield comes from short perps funding, and September’s bullish price moves in cryptocurrencies and leverage build-up create the type of environment that fuels USDe growth.
  • Moreover, USDe has become Morpho’s largest dollar-denominated collateral asset.
  • Early last week, Ethena also announced the extension of its basis trade into Binance’s bStocks and equity perps, opening a hedging venue that does not depend entirely on crypto funding.

OI Vey

• Hyperliquid’s monthly open interest (OI) hit a record ~$229 billion in September, implying ~$7.6 billion of OI on an average day.
  • September’s figure is up 24% from the prior month, and over 13% higher than its previous record set exactly 12 months ago.
  • With this, Hyperliquid now accounts for ~9.2% of total OI across all major exchanges, nearly double the share it had a year ago.
• Interestingly, despite the growth in OI, trading volume has not followed suit.
  • Hyperliquid’s ~$232 billion of perp volume in September was down 4% compared to the previous month.
  • Monthly volume has held in a $187–267 billion band all year, well below the $400 billion peak from August 2025.
  • Hyperliquid’s volume relative to Binance also fell to just under 14% in September, from a record 16.5% in June.
  • OI climbing while volume stays flat implies a decline in trader turnover.
  • Hyperliquid’s volume-to-OI ratio dropped to 1.02 in September, from 1.36 a year earlier, which essentially means traders are opening positions and holding them for longer rather than churning through them.
  • This may not be surprising considering HIP-3 markets now make up 30% of Hyperliquid’s volume, and those markets (perps for equities, indices, and commodities) naturally attract traders with multi-day or multi-week macro views rather than intraday crypto scalping.

Home Field Advantage

• Polymarket US recorded $8.7 billion of volume in September, a new record and more than double the global platform’s $4.3 billion.
  • It is the first month in which Polymarket’s US arm has out-traded its global arm.
  • On the other hand, Kalshi recorded over $59 billion in September, also a new record and up 53% MoM.
• While Polymarket has not abandoned the global platform, it has stopped being the growth engine.
  • Polymarket Global’s volume in September 2026 was still more than double September 2025’s, though admittedly, its users are leaving faster than its volume.
  • Monthly active traders in September fell by 15% MoM and are also over 60% below their March 2026 peak.
  • This falloff predates the FIFA World Cup too, as Polymarket Global’s volume had already fallen from over $10.5 billion in March to $7 billion in May, before the tournament briefly revived it.
• Polymarket’s US build-out is aimed squarely at Kalshi.
  • Kalshi’s growth this year has come from regulated US sports flow and parlays, and Polymarket US is seemingly copying the playbook, as combination contracts made up more than half of Polymarket US volume in the final full week of September.
• OI data also shows the divergence between the two Polymarket venues.
  • Polymarket Global OI currently stands at ~$355 million, down 21% since June 1st.
  • Meanwhile, Polymarket US OI set a record $358 million in late September, the same day Kalshi hit its own OI record.
  • For Polymarket, its Global platform seems to be settling into a lower-turnover venue for longer-dated political, macro, and crypto markets, while the high-churn sports volume consolidates onshore into its Polymarket US arm.