A Real-World On-Chain Data Review of the 2025 Web3 Narrative | OKX Yearbook

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

This report will clarify on-chain funding behavior this year: What are the differences between small investors and whales? In which chains, protocols, and activities did money truly explode? Which products are actually used by users, and which are just hyped concepts? How much of the returns from on-chain wealth management are actually attainable? Which strategies can generate profits, and which have resulted in losses? More importantly—who actually made money on-chain this year? Are these money-making methods replicable? Which trends have already been "preemptively positioned"?

DEX trading is concentrated on chains such as Solana and Ethereum.

Overall, the DEX aggregator market size exceeded one trillion US dollars in 2025. OKX DEX aggregator, leveraging its advantages in multi-chain asset routing and wallet-side entry points, saw continuous growth in trading volume. Driven by the MEME coin trading boom, DEX on-chain trading activity saw a significant concentrated increase in February. In terms of time distribution, February became one of the most concentrated months for DEX trading throughout the year, with a peak daily trading volume approaching 2 billion US dollars, exhibiting typical "event-driven" explosive characteristics. While trading volume rapidly increased, the structural differentiation of DEX trading across different public chains also became clearer.

From the perspective of public chain distribution, DEX trading volume is mainly concentrated on five mainstream public chains: Solana, Ethereum, BSC, Base, and Polygon. Among them, Solana stands out the most, with its annual DEX trading volume being approximately 1.6 times that of Ethereum, making it the primary network for MEME coin trading. This phenomenon not only reflects the significantly increased sensitivity of users 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 capabilities, and user interaction experience. The large number of MEME projects choosing to launch on Solana means that trading activity is locked within the same network during the asset generation stage, further amplifying the clustering effect of on-chain transactions.

Ethereum, as a mature ecosystem, remains the core foundation of DEX trading thanks to its long-accumulated asset depth, mainstream projects, and stable liquidity. Its trading structure leans towards diversified assets, stablecoin trading, and relatively rational asset allocation needs. In contrast, BSC does not rely on a deep ecosystem but attracts a large number of price-sensitive and new users through low barriers to entry, low costs, and strong user mobilization capabilities. During periods of highly concentrated MEME market activity, BSC was able to achieve a trading volume close to Ethereum's in a short period through efficient traffic and rapid dissemination mechanisms. This demonstrates that in specific market environments, user scale and trading frequency can partially offset the difference in ecosystem maturity.

Base and Polygon are in the later tier, with relatively limited overall trading volume. Their growth path relies more on clear narratives, blockbuster applications, or phased incentive cycles. Compared to the aforementioned public chains, this tier still has significant shortcomings in user stickiness and liquidity. However, within specific windows of opportunity, by hosting a single hot application or thematic asset, it may still rapidly accumulate trading volume and contribute phased incremental growth to the overall DEX market.

OKX DEX trading volume public chain distribution structure

Trading scenarios are gradually becoming a key factor influencing the evolution of the DEX landscape. Trading scenarios, exemplified by MEME coin, have accelerated the concentration of trading traffic on a few public chains. This is underpinned by mechanisms such as rapid asset issuance, social dissemination, and short-cycle speculation, which not only amplify the scale of single-chain transactions but also reshape cross-chain fund flows and the choice of DEX types. Subsequent chapters will analyze data related to MEME trading to further understand its impact on the phased evolution of the DEX landscape.

Building on this foundation, the DEX trading landscape is shifting from a "single main chain dominance" to a "multi-tiered, clearly defined division of labor." High-performance public chains support high-frequency trading, mature ecosystems handle asset accumulation and risk pricing, while traffic-driven and emerging public chains amplify performance in specific market conditions. This differentiation necessitates trading platforms possessing cross-chain and scenario-based collaborative capabilities. OKX DEX, leveraging its multi-chain coverage and aggregated architecture, connects public chains from different tiers and trading scenarios through a unified entry point, helping users efficiently manage both short-term market conditions and long-term asset allocation needs.

The number of active trading addresses on DEX increased 2.6 times year-on-year.

In 2025, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) continued to play a core role as the infrastructure for Web3 trading. With the maturation of public blockchain ecosystems, the improvement of trading infrastructure, and the increased timeliness of on-chain asset execution, DEXs are gradually becoming the preferred choice for more users to trade assets. The number of active DEX users showed significant growth throughout the year, with trading activity gradually expanding from a few mainstream assets to more new project tokens, while activity and trading frequency also increased significantly.

Compared to last year, the number of active DEX user addresses on OKX Wallet increased by 2.6 times in 2025, with the increase mainly concentrated on a few popular public chains. As project issuance and trading hotspots continue to emerge, user behavior shows obvious on-chain aggregation characteristics, and trading activities are rapidly concentrated on specific networks and projects, forming a new market structure and rhythm.

The MEME coin ecosystem is one of the most representative narratives in the DEX market. Despite the year-end market correction, MEME trading remains highly speculative. The most active on-chain MEME users are highly sensitive to price fluctuations and market rhythms, seeking fast, popular trading opportunities and influenced by community activity and social media buzz. Their trading needs focus on speed, flexibility, and on-chain information insights : trades need to be fast, have a high success rate, and support continuous operations; meanwhile, on-chain indicators such as insider trading tracking, developer holding dynamics, token distribution, and candlestick chart analysis can help users determine fund flows, concentrated activity, and potential manipulation, thereby assisting in short-term following and high-frequency speculation.

Looking at the annual distribution of MEME coin transactions, Solana and BSC are the two most concentrated public chains, but they differ in transaction volume and asset structure. The projects with the highest annual trading volume on Solana include Trump, Melania, Swarms, BUZZ, VINE, STONKS, ai16z, and LIBRA, among others. Frequent project turnover and fast trading pace make it a core network for high-frequency MEME trading. The projects with the highest trading volume on BSC are mainly Broccoli, TST, NODE, Binance Life, and KOGE, relying more on community diffusion and traffic-driven growth to quickly gather activity within specific windows. Although the continuous trading capacity of a single asset is limited, BSC, with its low entry barrier and large user base, still maintains a stable foundation for participation.

Due to structural differences, Solana's annual mainstream MEME trading volume is approximately 3.6 times that of BSC. Overall, MEME user growth is concentrated on a few popular networks. Solana is better suited for high-frequency, rapidly rotating trading scenarios, while BSC has an advantage in high-volume participation and short-term trading. Together, they constitute an important arena for current MEME trading.

Solana and some mainstream MEME trading data from BSC

It's worth noting that OKX launched its in-exchange DEX in November 2025. Users can now directly use USDT/USDC in their trading accounts to purchase on-chain tokens such as Solana, Base, and X Layer without needing to cross-chain transactions, withdraw funds, or manage mnemonic phrases or private keys. The in-exchange DEX features a self-custodial design, with OKX handling gas payments, resulting in a lighter and smoother experience.

Information and time differences directly translate into profits for MEME users. Therefore, in 2025, Wallet continued to listen to the community and improved the user experience through hundreds of detailed optimizations and core upgrades. For example, the speed of new coin inclusion was shortened to less than 1.5 seconds; one-click transaction confirmation simplified the operation and accelerated the coin distribution process; the loading of the token page, candlestick charts, trading functions, and overall speed were comprehensively improved to industry-leading levels; and AI narrative was added, etc.

Ethereum and Tron remain the main scenarios for cross-chain communication.

In 2025, cross-chain funds held by OKX DEX aggregator users were highly concentrated between a few highly liquid public chains. Ethereum and TRON constituted the core funding channels, with two-way cross-chain transactions accounting for nearly half of the total liquidity for the year. This structure benefited from TRON's low fees, high throughput on-chain characteristics and its high efficiency in USDT transfer scenarios, while also relying on Ethereum's rich ecosystem resources, making TRON an important node for users in emerging markets to conduct small payments and fund transfers.

Two-way cross-chain transactions between Ethereum and Arbitrum account for over a quarter of the total, forming a high-frequency cycle between the mainnet and L2. Users often allocate funds on low-fee chains like Arbitrum for short-term trading or DeFi activities, before returning to the Ethereum mainnet for asset accumulation and security. Overall, the four major chains—Ethereum to TRON, TRON to Ethereum, Ethereum to Arbitrum, and Arbitrum to Ethereum—contribute approximately 70% of cross-chain fund flows, indicating that cross-chain activity is highly concentrated on a few core paths.

From a directional perspective, in most bidirectional blockchain pairs, the outflow of Ethereum funds exceeds the inflow, reflecting its pivotal role as a source of funds. However, between Ethereum and Arbitrum, the inflow slightly exceeds the outflow, reflecting an active pattern of some L2 funds returning to the main chain. Meanwhile, the unidirectional flow of Ethereum to emerging L2 blockchains exceeds 10%, indicating that main chain funds are still continuously spilling over into the expanding ecosystem.

In contrast, high-performance public chains such as Solana, BSC, and Base have relatively low cross-chain transaction volumes, accounting for approximately 13% of total liquidity, primarily serving strategic allocation or short-term operational functions. However, there is still a relatively independent two-way flow of funds between Solana and BSC, with a scale approaching the cross-chain transaction volume between Ethereum and Solana. This indicates that emerging public chains have begun to develop certain independent fund allocation needs and do not entirely rely on Ethereum as the sole hub.

Overall, cross-chain funds exhibit a structural characteristic of "high concentration on the main path and continuous spillover on the expansion path." Based on this, the OKX DEX aggregator covers 25+ cross-chains, 40+ public chains, and 400+ DEXs, and leverages X Routing smart routing to achieve optimal pricing across multiple DEXs. It also provides features such as market data, limit orders, and KYT security checks, offering users a more efficient and controllable trading experience in complex cross-chain environments.

DeFi investing is shifting towards more structured portfolio allocation.

In the on-chain environment, lending and staking protocols remain relatively stable and sustainable sources of income, and funds continue to concentrate on these leading protocols. This indirectly reflects that more and more users are choosing OKX DeFi Earning products as one of their main entry points for participating in on-chain DeFi. Looking at user investment amounts, funds are mainly concentrated in large, stable, and mature leading protocols. Among the top 10 protocols by user investment amount, Aave V3 has over $200 million in investment, significantly leading other protocols and demonstrating its core position and high level of trust in the lending sector. The remaining top 10 protocols all have over $20 million in investment, showing an overall distribution structure of "stable at the top and orderly in the 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 solely betting on high-risk strategies in their fund allocation, but rather are making combined investments around mature protocols and predictable return paths.

Among them, emerging public blockchain native lending protocols such as NAVI Protocol, Echelon Market, and Echo Protocol all entered the Top 10, indicating that users are actively allocating some funds to new ecosystems with stronger incentives and less competition. Multi-chain allocation has become an important way to obtain incremental returns. Finally, the coexistence of Lido and Puffer Finance reflects the tiered allocation of staking funds. Users choose mature and stable staking schemes in their core funds, while improving the overall return elasticity through new mechanisms such as re-staking. These phenomena collectively indicate that DeFi investment is shifting from a single strategy to a more structured portfolio allocation.

Overall, higher-value investments are flowing more towards protocols with stronger security, sustainability, and mature mechanisms , reflecting users' emphasis on risk control and long-term availability in DeFi investments. Regardless of your experience with on-chain earning, OKX Wallet's DeFi Earnings provides a one-stop on-chain subscription tool, allowing you to easily participate in various subscription activities of leading protocols such as Aave and Morpho. In addition to earning native protocol rewards, you also have the opportunity to enjoy extra rewards configured for users by DeFi Earnings. Regarding funds, all operations require user authorization, ensuring that funds only interact directly with the protocol for staking.

xBTC is the fastest-growing DeFi investment product this year.

Looking at the distribution of user-invested assets, stablecoins remain the core underlying assets for DeFi investments . Among the top 10 most invested assets, USDC and USDT rank highly, continuing to play a fundamental role in liquidity management, lending collateral, and strategy execution. Meanwhile, the emergence of yield-enhancing stablecoin products such as USDS, Usual Boosted USDC, and Relend USDC 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 users' recognition of the long-term value and ecosystem participation of mainstream public chain assets. Notably, xBTC has become one of the fastest-growing DeFi investment products this year , ranking among the top 10 assets with the most user investment. This change indicates that users are participating in DeFi through on-chain BTC assets, retaining their BTC value exposure while gaining additional yield opportunities, reflecting the accelerating trend of "Bitcoin DeFiization."

In addition, the entry of emerging or re-collateralized assets such as SUI and sAVAX into the Top 10 shows that users are starting to try assets with phased growth potential in addition to their core asset allocation in order to improve the overall return elasticity.

From a participation perspective, the "number of investors" metric shows a different emphasis than the amount of capital invested. Currently, due to its relatively low barriers to entry, clear logic, and high usage frequency, lending remains the primary entry point for users to participate in DeFi. Among lending protocols, NAVI Protocol, Aave V3, and Compound V3 rank in the top three in terms of the number of investors. This distribution reflects that users prefer to enter on-chain financial activities through mature or native lending protocols. Even if the investment scale of individual users is limited, the broader participation base contributes to a considerable overall level of activity.

In terms of liquidity protocols, Momentum, Uniswap V3, and Hyperion are the top three with the most investors. Compared to lending protocols, liquidity protocols place greater emphasis on trading participation and fee income, attracting a large number of small and medium-sized users. This further illustrates that the number of users reflects the breadth of participation, while the amount of money involved reflects the depth of funds; together, they constitute a complete picture of DeFi usage structure.

DeFi investments still favor mainstream public chains such as Ethereum.

Within the OKX Wallet DeFi earning ecosystem, users tend to allocate capital to public chains with high TVL (Total Value Limit), deep liquidity, and stable returns to achieve efficient earning and reduce slippage risk. Looking at the top 10 public chains with the most DeFi investments, Ethereum remains in first place , continuing to serve as the main platform for core asset accumulation and high-value DeFi activities. Its advantages in TVL, liquidity depth, and protocol maturity make it the preferred network for large funds to engage in lending, staking, and sound strategy allocation.

Meanwhile, high-performance or emerging public chains such as AVAX, SUI, and SOL ranked highly, reflecting users' willingness to allocate some funds to lower-cost and more incentivized on-chain environments while pursuing returns and execution efficiency. BSC, Base, and Arbitrum, with their advantages in user scale and transaction frequency, primarily handle traffic and strategy execution, exhibiting periodic activity driven by trending events or ecosystem activities. Furthermore, emerging networks such as PLASMA, APTOS, and KATANA entered the Top 10, indicating users are gradually exploring more differentiated ecosystems and reserving configuration space for future growth. Overall, users' DeFi investments are not concentrated on a single public chain but rather form a multi-chain parallel configuration structure centered around security, performance, and incentive mechanisms.

By considering the three dimensions of protocols, assets, and public chains, we can see that DeFi behavior is evolving from early single-point speculation to a more systematic allocation of assets and strategies: at the protocol level, funds are concentrating on mature leading companies; at the asset level, stablecoins provide a foundation, while BTC and mainstream public chain assets enhance returns; at the public chain level, multiple chains are dividing tasks and operating collaboratively. DeFi is gradually shifting from an "opportunity-driven market" to a "structured asset management scenario," with users increasingly focusing on long-term sustainability and risk controllability.

OKX Boost has distributed over $40 million in prize money.

Since its launch in September this year, OKX Boost has completed 37 X Launches by the end of December, distributing over $43 million in prize money. It has also hosted 22 trading competitions with a total prize pool of $5.22 million. The average return per X Launch unit exceeded $520, with an average total return of nearly $1200 per user and an average return of over $28 per user per round.

Thanks to X Launch's points-based system, users with lower scores (1-2 points) typically achieve higher returns than those with higher scores (7-8 points), enabling ordinary traders to also achieve substantial rewards. Compared to the traditional first-come, first-served model, X Launch allows all users who meet the trading volume and position requirements to participate fairly in the rewards program. Furthermore, strict risk control measures ensure the fairness of reward distribution, making it more user-friendly.

OKX Boost is a product launched by OKX Wallet. Simply put, it's a platform that allows users to participate in new on-chain projects first, while simultaneously giving project teams real user attention and exposure. It integrates different activity formats, including X Launch, Giveaway, and trading competitions, allowing users to both earn rewards and experience new projects. The system determines eligibility for rewards based on a user's trading volume and holdings. All rewards are automatically distributed through decentralized contracts, and fund flows and reward distribution are transparent and traceable, ensuring fairness and security. Furthermore, OKX Exchange's built-in DEX functionality and OKX DEX aggregator also support OKX Boost. Users can participate by updating their app to version 6.149, increasing their chances of sharing rewards.

Conclusion: User behavior is becoming more rational and pragmatic.

On-chain data from 2025 shows that smaller funds tend to participate in short-term hot topics and new projects, seeking returns through OKX Boost's X Launch, trading competitions, or short-term arbitrage; larger funds, on the other hand, concentrate on mature, highly liquid lending and staking protocols, allocating funds among highly active chains to achieve stable returns. The operational trajectories of high-frequency MEME users and whales clearly reflect annual on-chain fund preferences and actual behavioral patterns, revealing strategic differences and market participation patterns.

On-chain fund flows and transaction behavior show that stablecoin trading still dominates, while mainstream public chain assets and lending/staking protocols are the areas with the highest returns. Users are seeking a balance between short-term opportunities and long-term stable investments. Small-scale users focus on fair participation and high returns, while large-scale users focus on liquidity and arbitrage efficiency. DeFi earning, cross-chain trading, and MEME gameplay demonstrate the potential for sustainable returns.

Overall, user on-chain behavior in 2025 exhibited rationality and pragmatism, with funds flowing more towards mature and stable protocols and on-chain opportunities. Users who truly profited often combined cognitive biases with a balanced approach of strategically investing in leading protocols and capturing short-term opportunities. These patterns are not entirely unreplicable, but rather rely on an understanding of the ecosystem's logic and the patterns of capital flow.