One of Binance Smart Chain’s largest decentralized exchanges is bulking up in the competition for traders. In July 2021, PancakeSwap was the third-most visited crypto exchange in the world. They came up short of only two exchanges: Binance and Coinbase.
PancakeSwap, which appreciated significant growth in Q1, is even starting to catch up with some of the most recognizable DEXes and lending platforms in terms of volume and total value locked (TVL). TVL is one way to measure the amount of user adoption in a DeFi protocol, because it measures how much money that investors are storing in a protocol or platform.
The world’s largest DEX by volume, Uniswap, posted roughly $7 billion in TVL as of this writing. PancakeSwap posted $5.9 billion. For volume, which measures how much money is being traded on the platform, PancakeSwap posted $712 million in the trailing 24-hour period. Uniswap posted just over a billion between their v2 and v3 platforms. 🦄🦄
The two exchanges are getting closer and closer in terms of meaningful figures. However, Uniswap and PancakeSwap are worlds away from each other in terms of market cap.
Uniswap trades at nearly 4x the market capitalization of PancakeSwap. That difference can speak to two factors: the awareness that investors have of Uniswap and investors’ preference for Ethereum. After all, Binance Smart Chain is run by one of the more controversial players in the world of crypto.
However, as the bull market gets back on its feet? $CAKE.X might be in a better position to run than its overpriced ETH-based competitor, $UNI.X, which is worth over 3x more than it manages in TVL.
$CAKE.X is down over 50% from its April highs, but up from $0.62 on Jan. 1. Today, it’s worth $22.93. 🥞🥞🥞