#2CurveFinance
CurveFinanceis aDEXthat facilitates the trading ofstablecoins, includingDAI, USDC, USDT, TUSD, BUSD, and FRAX. It is currently the second-largestDEXin terms oftrading volumeand TVL, with over $2.23 billion locked in its pools.
Launched in early 2020,Curvealso started onEthereum. It has eventually extended to 13 chains, including manylayer 2networks.
Unlike Uniswap that facilitates pools consisting of paired tokens, Curve provides a diverse selection of pools that can contain two, three, or even four tokens. This versatility is more manageable because all the tokens in Curve’s pools are stablecoins.
WhileCurveinitially focused exclusively onstablecoins, it has also added pools that includeEthereum(ETH) andwrapped tokenslike WrappedBitcoin(WBTC).
Stablecoinsplay a major role inDeFi, as they eliminate volatility and enable the development of practical decentralized financial services likelendingand insurance. Therefore, the focus onstablecoinsis not a limitation forCurve. It enables users to carry out large trades with unnoticeable priceslippageandlowgas fees.
TheCurveecosystemis fueled by the nativeCRVtoken, which provides governance in CurveDAO.
#3PancakeSwap
PancakeSwap, influenced by Uniswap and launched in 2020, is a DEX tailored for Binance’s BSC, catering to the exchange of BEP-20 tokens. Additionally, it accommodates several other chains like Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, and Linea.
As of today, PancakeSwap has over $2.45 billion hosted in its pools.
UsingPancakeSwapis similar to experiencingUniswap, with a focus on theBinanceecosystem. TheDEXaccounts for about half of the TVL onBSC.
PancakeSwapoffers a proprietary token known asCAKE, which can be used to participate inyield farming.
PancakeSwap also enables the trading andstakingofnon-fungible tokens (NFTs).
#4Balancer
Balanceris aDeFiprotocol that launched in 2020. It has been operating as aDEXonEthereum, but is different from standardDEXslikeUniswap.
What setsBalancerapart are the extended token pools that it hosts, whichfunctionas index funds. Users can createBalancerpools consisting of multiple tokens. Sometimes, these pools can include as many as eight tokens!
LPs lock assets in these extended pools and earn rewards paid inBAL, the protocol’snative token.
Today,Balancersupports tokens on seven different chains. BesidesEthereum, it also supportsArbitrum, Avalanche,Polygon, Base, andGnosis.
Today, over $1 billion worth ofcrypto assetsare locked inBalancer’s pools.
#5Sushiswap
Sushiswap is a Uniswap-like DEX launched in 2020. Sushi developers copied the open-source code of Uniswap, so the two are pretty similar.
Sushi pledged to give its users more decision-making power, although Uniswap eventually introduced community governance as well.
SushiSwap facilitates the trading of tokens hosted on 19 chains, being the most versatile DEX in this sense. However, in May of 2024, it had less than $350 million TVL.
#5Worthy Mention: Aerodrome
Aerodrone is the main DEX behind “Base”, the layer 2 network launched by Coinbase in 2023. In early 2024, memecoins on Base like “DEGEN” exploded, sending the TVL of Aerodrone to over $700 million.
