A significant milestone for the Celo blockchain has just been achieved: DEX volume has shot up. In the past seven days, it has crossed the $1 blockchain, decentralized volume has shot up.
Over the past week, DEX volume on the Celo blockchain has crossed the $1 billion threshold for the first time. It’s up a staggering 192% week-over-week, and it’s not just outpacing Celo’s previous performance; it’s now ahead of major networks like Avalanche and Polygon.
Celo DEX volume hits $1B in 7 days
Over the past 7 days, total DEX volume on @Celo increased by 192% and reached $1.06B. This puts #Celo ahead of Avalanche, Sonic, and Polygon in terms of DEX volume.
More than $1B of this volume was generated by the @MentoLabs, which… pic.twitter.com/ra2wnQgs7f
— CryptoRank.io (@CryptoRank_io) April 15, 2025
This extraordinary growth owes a lot to Mento Labs, a protocol built on the Celo blockchain that deals in overcollateralized stablecoins. Mento’s infrastructure underpins several stable digital currencies, including cUSD, cEUR, and other Mento-backed, exogenously collateralized stablecoins. For most of the past week, Mento was Mento Labs were Celo’s only DeFi platform and accounted for nearly all the DEX volume on Celo, producing over $1 billion in transactions.
Last week, @Celo hit an all-time high in weekly DEX volume at just under $1B.
The Stablecoin Swaps trading pair (swaps of two stablecoins) drove almost all of this volume. pic.twitter.com/LfTbF4AvAl
— Sharples 🟪 (@0xSharples) April 14, 2025
Stablecoin Swaps Lead the Charge
Celo’s volume explosion is driven by a specific niche within decentralized trading—stablecoin swaps. These trades are not the same as the volatile crypto-to-crypto exchanges that most people think of when they picture DeFi trading. Instead, a stablecoin swap involves the exchange of one stablecoin for another, an activity that offers a more predictable, low-volatility user experience. To get a sense for what this looks like in practice, consider the fact that in the first half of 2023, nearly half of all Celo trades were stablecoin swaps, and the majority of those trades were coming out of Europe.
Focusing on euro-backed stablecoins reflects a user behavior shift that is pretty significant. For ages, USD-backed stablecoins like USDC and USDT have called the DeFi landscape home. But now, we see EUR pairs bumping up in volume, which strongly suggests that there’s increasing interest from users in Europe, or from protocols serving euro-based economies, in euro-backed stablecoins. Celo, with its mobile-first architecture and its mission to build inclusive, euro-backed financial infrastructures, is perfectly positioned to ride this rising wave.
Mento Labs is still out in front—”in the lead”—as the kids say, when it comes to stablecoin-based DEX activity on Celo. Its protocols are not just DEXs; they are the best kind of DEXs in that they are optimized for the seamless minting and trading of asset-backed stablecoins. And why is that a good thing? Because, with Mento, users who prefer the stability and security of fiat-pegged assets can remain confident that they will have low-slippage, highly reliable DeFi trading experiences.
Celo’s Quiet Climb to the Top
Even as much of the crypto universe concentrates on bigger blockchains and more attention-grabbing protocols, Celo’s recent performance in the decentralized exchanges world suggests it’s quietly amassing real, sustainable momentum. Recent months have seen the Celo platform pour resources into maturing its infrastructure and deepening its ecosystem. These are steps toward serving the DeFi community with a product that is more usable and accessible, especially on mobile—a feature of the experience that is ever more important as time goes on.
The latest spike in trading volume is particularly noteworthy when compared to other ecosystems. To surpass Avalanche, Sonic, and Polygon in DEX volume is no small feat—these networks host some of the most active and well-funded DeFi protocols in the space. Yet Celo’s unique positioning in the stablecoin sector, combined with its efficient network architecture, appears to have given it an edge, at least in this specific and growing market segment.
What’s Next for Celo and Stablecoin-Based DeFi
The important questions raised by Celo’s breakout DEX performance about the future of stablecoin trading in decentralized finance give us pause. While crypto market volatility remains—well, volatile—a more robust decentralized finance ecosystem is emerging, one where users can transact cheaply and efficiently without depending on any single intermediary or authority. Users and developers may be drawn to the protocols within this ecosystem that proffer the stability of a non-volatile currency. If the trend holds, Mento could be a major beneficiary of it, as could its home blockchain.
At present, the figures are indicative: more than $1 billion in weekly volume, a 192% boost in DEX operations, and an undisputed dominance in the area of stablecoin swaps. As Celo fine-tunes its product suite and pulls in new user cohorts, its involvement in the nascent stablecoin-centric DeFi sector is becoming as obvious as it is undebatable.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
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