Source: OKX

While everyone is chasing narratives, users have already written the annual truth with their actions.

When the market is dominated by grand narratives and fleeting FOMO sentiment, the real Web3 trends and user behaviors are often hidden beneath surface-level data. OKX Wallet's 2025 Annual Report will focus on a core question—uncovering on-chain user true preferences.

This report will clarify this year's on-chain fund behavior: what are the differences between small funds and whales; where money truly flows in terms of chains, protocols, and activities; which products users are actually using versus which ones are just conceptual hype; how much of the on-chain financial management yield is actually realizable; which strategies can yield gains, and which ones are scams? More importantly, who actually made money on-chain this year? Are these earning methods replicable? Which trends have been "previously positioned"?

DEX Trading Concentrated on Solana and Ethereum Chains

Overall, the 2025 DEX Aggregator market size has exceeded a trillion dollars, with the OKX DEX Aggregator continuing to grow its trading volume through multi-chain asset routing and wallet-side entry advantages; driven by the MEME coin trading frenzy, on-chain DEX trading activity experienced significant concentration amplification in February. Looking at the time distribution, February became one of the most densely traded months of the year, with daily transaction volume peaking at nearly $2 billion, exhibiting a typical "event-driven" explosive characteristic. As trading volume rapidly surged, the differentiation in DEX trading across different public chains became more evident.

In terms of public chain distribution, DEX trading volume is mainly concentrated on five mainstream public chains: Solana, Ethereum, BSC, Avalanche, and Polygon. Among these, Solana stands out, with its DEX trading volume for the year approximately 1.6 times that of Ethereum, becoming the primary network for MEME coin trading. This phenomenon not only reflects that in a high-frequency, emotion-driven trading environment, users' sensitivity to transaction costs, confirmation speed, and execution success rate has significantly increased, but also closely relates to Solana's advantages in asset issuance efficiency, transaction concurrency capacity, and user interaction experience. A large number of MEME projects choose to launch on Solana, locking trading behavior within the same network during the asset generation phase, further amplifying the on-chain trading concentration effect.

As a mature ecosystem, Ethereum, with its long-standing asset depth, mainstream projects, and stable liquidity, still forms the core foundation of DEX trading, with its trading structure leaning more towards diversified assets, stablecoin trading, and relatively rational allocation demands. In comparison, BSC does not rely on deep ecosystem sedimentation but attracts a large number of price-sensitive and new users to participate in trading through its low threshold, low cost, and strong traffic mobilization capabilities. During the highly concentrated phase of the MEME market, BSC, leveraging traffic efficiency and rapid dissemination mechanisms, was able to achieve a trading volume close to Ethereum in a short period, indicating that in specific market environments, user scale and transaction frequency's amplification effect on trading can partly offset the maturity gap in the ecosystem.

Base and Polygon are in the subsequent tier, with a relatively limited overall transaction scale. Their growth path relies more on a clear narrative drive, application hotspots, or phased incentive cycles. Compared to the aforementioned main chains, this tier still exhibits significant shortcomings in user stickiness and liquidity depth. However, within a specific window of time, by hosting a single hotspot application or thematic asset, this tier may still rapidly gather transaction volume, contributing to a phased increase in the overall DEX market.

OKX DEX Transaction Volume Public Chain Distribution Structure

The transaction scenario is gradually becoming a key factor influencing the evolution of the DEX landscape. The transaction scenario represented by MEME coins has accelerated the flow of transactions to a few public chains. This is overlaid with mechanisms such as rapid asset issuance, social dissemination, and short-term gaming, which not only amplify the scale of single-chain transactions but also reshape cross-chain fund flows and DEX type selection. Subsequent sections will focus on the data breakdown of MEME transactions, further analyzing their impact on the phased evolution of the DEX landscape.

On this basis, the DEX transaction landscape is evolving from being "dominated by a single main chain" to "coexistence of multiple tiers with clear division of labor." High-performance public chains handle high-frequency transactions, while mature ecosystems undertake asset precipitation and risk pricing, and traffic-oriented and emerging public chains exhibit an amplification effect in specific market conditions. This differentiation requires trading platforms to have cross-chain and scenario coordination capabilities. OKX DEX relies on multi-chain coverage and an aggregated architecture to connect different-tier public chains and transaction scenarios under a unified entry point, helping users effectively respond to short-term market trends and long-term allocation needs.

DEX Active Trading Addresses Grow 2.6x YoY

In 2025, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) will continue to serve as the core infrastructure for Web3 transactions. As the public chain ecosystem matures, trading infrastructure improves, and on-chain asset execution timeliness increases, DEXs are gradually becoming the preferred choice for more users to trade assets. Throughout the year, active DEX users have shown significant growth, with trading activity gradually expanding from a few mainstream assets to more new project tokens. At the same time, both activity level and trading frequency have increased significantly.

Compared to last year, in 2025, the number of active DEX user addresses in the OKX Wallet grew 2.6 times YoY, with the increment mainly concentrated on a few hotspot public chains. As projects continue to launch and trading hotspots emerge, user behavior exhibits clear on-chain aggregation characteristics, with trading activity quickly concentrating 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, pursuing fast and trendy trading opportunities, influenced by community activity and social media buzz. Their trading demands focus on speed, flexibility, and on-chain insights: transactions need to be fast, with high success rates, supporting continuous operations. Additionally, on-chain metrics such as whale watching, dynamic developer holdings, chip distribution, and candlestick trend analysis can help users assess fund flows, concentration of activity, and potential manipulation behavior, assisting in short-term follow-ups and high-frequency speculation.

Looking at the annual MEME coin trading distribution, Solana and BSC are the most concentrated two blockchains, but there are differences in transaction volume and asset structure. The projects with the highest annual transaction volume on Solana include TRUMP, MELANIA, swarms, BUZZ, VINE, STONKS, ai16z, LIBRA, etc. These projects experience frequent turnover and fast transaction pace, making Solana a core network for high-frequency MEME trading. The highest transaction volume projects on BSC are mainly Broccoli, TST, NODE, Binance Life, KOGE, etc., relying more on community diffusion and traffic driving, quickly gathering activity in specific windows. Although individual assets have limited continuous trading capabilities, BSC, relying on low barriers to entry and a large user base, can still form a stable participation foundation.

Under structural differences, Solana's mainstream MEME trading volume is about 3.6 times that of BSC's in the whole year. Overall, MEME user growth is concentrated in a few hot networks, with Solana more suitable for hosting high-frequency, rapidly rotating transaction scenarios, while BSC has an advantage in traffic-based participation and short-term gaming. Together, they jointly constitute an important site for current MEME trading occurrences.

Solana and BSC Mainstream MEME Trading Situation

It is worth noting that OKX launched an in-house DEX in November 2025. Users can now directly purchase on-chain tokens such as Solana, Base, X Layer, etc., using USDT/USDC in their trading account, without the need for cross-chain transactions, withdrawals, managing mnemonics, or private keys. The in-house DEX adopts a self-custody design, with OKX paying Gas fees on behalf of users, providing a lighter and smoother experience.

Information asymmetry and time lag will directly translate into MEME user profits. Therefore, in 2025, Wallet continued to listen to community feedback, enhancing user experience through hundreds of detailed optimizations and core upgrades. For example, the speed of new coin inclusion has been shortened to less than 1.5 seconds; one-click transaction confirmation simplifies operations, accelerating transaction confirmation speed; token page loading, K-line, trading functions, and overall speed are comprehensively upgraded to industry-leading levels; AI narration has been added, and more.

Ethereum and Tron Remain Key Cross-Chain Scenarios

In 2025, the cross-chain funds of OKX DEX Aggregator users are highly concentrated among a few highly liquid public chains. Ethereum and TRON constitute the most core fund channels, with the total two-way cross-chain proportion accounting for nearly half of the total annual flow. This structure benefits from TRON's low fees, high throughput on-chain characteristics, and its efficiency in the USDT transfer scenario, as well as Ethereum's rich ecosystem resources, making TRON an important node for emerging market users to make small payments and facilitate fund circulation.

The two-way cross-chain proportion between Ethereum and Arbitrum exceeds one quarter, forming a high-frequency loop between the main chain and L2. Users often allocate funds to Arbitrum and other low-fee chains to participate in short-term transactions or DeFi activities, and then flow back to the Ethereum mainnet for asset precipitation and security. Overall, the four major chain pairs contributing to Ethereum to TRON, TRON to Ethereum, Ethereum to Arbitrum, and Arbitrum to Ethereum account for about 70% of the cross-chain fund flow, showing that cross-chain behavior is highly concentrated on a few core paths.

From a directional perspective, in most bi-directional chain pairs, the outflow of funds from Ethereum is higher than the inflow, reflecting its hub status as a source of funds; while between Ethereum and Arbitrum, the inflow is slightly higher than the outflow, reflecting an active pattern of some L2 funds returning to the main chain. At the same time, the one-way flow from Ethereum to emerging L2 exceeds 10%, indicating that mainnet funds are still continuously spilling over to the expanding ecosystem.

In contrast, the cross-chain proportion of high-performance public chains such as Solana, BSC, and Base is relatively low, accounting for approximately 13% of the total flow, mainly serving strategic allocations or short-term operational functions. However, there is still relatively independent bi-directional fund flow between Solana and BSC, with a scale close to the cross-chain proportion between Ethereum and Solana, showing that there is already a certain level of independent fund allocation demand among emerging public chains and they do not fully rely on Ethereum as the sole hub.

Overall, the cross-chain funds exhibit a structural feature of "highly concentrated main paths and continuous overflow of expansion paths." Based on this, the OKX DEX Aggregator covers 25+ cross-chains, 40+ public chains, 400+ DEXs, and achieves multi-DEX optimal pricing through X Routing smart routing, while providing functions such as market information, limit orders, and KYT security checks, to offer users a more efficient and controllable trading experience in a complex cross-chain environment.

DeFi Investment is Shifting Towards More Structured Portfolio Allocation

In the on-chain environment, lending and staking protocols remain relatively robust and sustainable sources of income, and funds continue to concentrate in these leading protocols. This indirectly reflects that an increasing number of users choose OKX DeFi Earn products as one of the main entry points to participate in on-chain DeFi. In terms of user investment amount, funds are mainly concentrated in large, stable, and mature leading protocols. Among the Top 10 protocols in terms of user investment amount, Aave V3 has an investment amount exceeding $200 million, significantly ahead of other protocols, demonstrating its core position and high trust in the lending track. The remaining Top 10 protocol's investment amounts all exceed $20 million, presenting an overall distribution structure of "stable at the top, orderly in the middle."

The Top10 protocols cover multiple DeFi sub-categories, 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 have not singularly bet on high-risk strategies in fund allocation but have instead engaged in a combination investment around mature protocols and deterministic yield paths.

Among them, emerging chain-native lending protocols such as NAVI Protocol, Echelon Market, and Echo Protocol have simultaneously entered the Top10, indicating that users are proactively allocating some funds to incentivized and still competitively nascent ecosystems. Multi-chain allocation has become an important way to earn incremental yield. Lastly, the coexistence of Lido and Puffer Finance reflects the layered allocation characteristic of staked funds. Users choose mature, robust staking solutions for their core funds while enhancing overall yield flexibility through mechanisms like restaking. These phenomena collectively indicate that DeFi investments are transitioning from a single strategy to a more structured combination allocation.

Overall, a significant amount of investment is flowing towards protocols with higher security, sustainability, and more mature mechanisms, reflecting users' emphasis on risk control and long-term availability in DeFi investments. Whether or not you have on-chain yield farming experience, OKX Wallet's DeFi yield farming provides you with a one-stop on-chain subscription tool, allowing everyone to easily participate in various subscription activities of top protocols such as Aave and Morpho. In addition to receiving protocol-native rewards, there is also an opportunity to enjoy additional rewards allocated by DeFi yield farming to users. In terms of funds, all operations require user authorization to ensure that funds only interact directly with the protocol party for staking participation.

xBTC Emerges as the Fastest Growing DeFi Investment Product This Year

Looking at the distribution of user-invested products, stablecoins remain the core underlying assets of DeFi investments. Among the Top10 invested products, USDC and USDT rank at the top, continuing to play fundamental roles in liquidity management, lending collateral, and strategy execution. At the same time, the emergence of yield-enhanced stablecoin products such as USDS, Usual Boosted USDC, Relend USDC indicates that users are gradually transitioning from "passive holding" to "yield optimization" in stablecoin allocation.

In the world of non-stablecoin assets, ETH and SOL remain the primary underlying asset allocation, reflecting users' recognition of the long-term value and ecosystem participation of mainstream public chain assets. It is worth noting that xBTC has become one of the fastest-growing DeFi investment assets this year, entering the top 10 assets by user allocation. This change indicates that users are participating in DeFi with BTC assets through on-chain mechanisms, maintaining exposure to BTC value while seeking additional yield opportunities, reflecting the accelerating trend of "Bitcoinization of DeFi."

Furthermore, emerging assets such as SUI and sAVAX have entered the top 10 or are being re-staked, indicating that users are exploring assets with potential for phased growth beyond core asset allocations to enhance overall yield flexibility.

Looking at participation behavior, the focus on the "number of users participating" as an indicator shows a different emphasis from fund size. Currently, due to lower barriers to entry, clear logic, and high frequency of use, lending remains the primary entry point for user participation in DeFi. In lending protocols, NAVI Protocol, Aave V3, and Compound V3 are among the top 3 in terms of the number of users participating, reflecting that users prefer to enter on-chain financial activities through mature or native lending protocols. Despite individual user limited scale, with a broader participation base, a significant overall activity level is formed.

In terms of liquidity protocols, Momentum, Uniswap V3, and Hyperion are the top 3 in the number of users participating. Compared to lending protocols, liquidity protocols emphasize trading participation and fee rewards, 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 reflects the depth of funding, together forming a complete picture of the DeFi usage structure.

DeFi Investment Still Favors Mainstream Public Chains Such as Ethereum

Within the OKX Wallet DeFi Earn ecosystem, users tend to allocate capital to high TVL, deep liquidity, and stable yield public chains to achieve efficient earning and reduce slippage risk. Looking at the top 10 public chains where users have invested the most in DeFi, Ethereum still holds the top position, continuing to be the main ground 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 stable strategy allocation.

At the same time, high-performance or emerging public chains like AVAX, SUI, and SOL rank high, reflecting that users are willing to allocate some funds to lower-cost, more incentivized on-chain environments when pursuing returns and execution efficiency. BSC, Base, and Arbitrum have advantages in terms of user base and transaction frequency, more taking on traffic reception and strategy execution functions, forming a phase of activity under the push of hot events or ecosystem activities. In addition, emerging networks like PLASMA, APTOS, and KATANA have entered the top 10, showing that users are gradually exploring more diversified ecosystems, leaving room for future growth. Overall, users' DeFi investments are not concentrated on a single public chain but are structured around security, performance, and incentive mechanisms to form a multi-chain parallel configuration.

Looking at the three dimensions of the Composite Protocol, Assets, and Public Chain, we can see that DeFi behavior is transitioning from early single-point speculation to a more systematic asset and strategy allocation approach: at the protocol level, funds are concentrating towards mature leaders; at the asset level, stablecoins provide a foundation, BTC and mainstream public chain assets enhance returns; at the public chain level, there is a division of labor across chains and collaborative operations. DeFi is gradually moving from an "opportunity-driven market" to a "structured asset management scenario," with users' focus on long-term sustainability and risk control continuously increasing.

OKX Boost Distributes Bonuses Exceeding $40 Million

Since its launch in September this year, OKX Boost has completed 37 X Launch sessions by the end of December, distributing over $43 million in bonuses and hosting 22 trading competitions with a total prize pool of $5.22 million. Among them, the average individual return from X Launch projects exceeds $520, with an average total return per user of nearly $1,200, and an average return per user per session of over $28.

Thanks to the scoring mechanism of X Launch, users with lower scores (1-2 points) usually achieve a higher rate of return than high-score users (7-8 points), allowing ordinary traders to also achieve high returns. Compared to the traditional first-come, first-served model, X Launch allows all users who meet the trading volume and holding thresholds to participate fairly in the rewards. At the same time, strict risk control measures ensure the fairness of reward distribution, making it more user-friendly for genuine users.

OKX Boost is a product launched by OKX Wallet, which is essentially a platform that allows users to participate first in on-chain new projects while enabling project teams to receive genuine user attention and exposure. It integrates various activity forms, including X Launch, Giveaway, and trading competitions, allowing users to earn rewards and experience new projects. The system determines whether users are eligible to receive rewards based on their trading volume and holdings, and all bonuses are automatically distributed through decentralized contracts, with fund flows and reward distributions being publicly verifiable to ensure fairness and security. In addition, the OKX trading platform's built-in DEX feature and the OKX DEX aggregator also support OKX Boost, and users can participate by updating their app to version 6.149, increasing their chances to share rewards.

Conclusion: User Behavior Tends Towards Rationality and Pragmatism

On-chain data from 2025 indicates that small capital tends to participate more in short-term trends and new projects, earning returns through OKX Boost's X Launch, trading competitions, or short-term arbitrage; large capital, on the other hand, focuses on mature, liquid lending and staking protocols and allocates funds between high-activity chains to achieve steady returns. The clear operational paths of high-frequency MEME users and whales vividly reflect the annual on-chain fund preferences and actual behavioral patterns, demonstrating strategic differences and market participation trends.

On-chain fund flow and transaction behavior show that stablecoin transactions still dominate. Mainstream public chain assets and lending collateral protocols are concentrated in revenue. Users seek a balance between short-term opportunities and long-term steady layout. Small-scale users focus on fair participation and high yield. Large funds pay attention to liquidity and arbitrage efficiency. DeFi yield farming, cross-chain transactions, and MEME gameplay exemplify the potential for sustainable returns.

Overall, the on-chain behavior of users in 2025 exhibits rational and pragmatic characteristics. More funds flow to mature, stable protocols and on-chain opportunities. Users who truly earn profits often combine cognitive differences, balancing a strong position in head protocols with capturing short-term opportunities. These patterns are not entirely replicable but rely on an understanding of the ecosystem logic and fund flow patterns.

This article is contributed content and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.

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