Author: Odaily

On January 9, 2025, the trading volume of DEX reached 20% of CEX for the first time in history, and the seemingly calm surface of the cryptocurrency industry began to have undercurrents.

History always repeats itself. From the "Occupy Wall Street" movement to the birth of Bitcoin targeting financial oligarchs, every era has its own revolutionaries. They shatter the shackles and reconstruct the order, but often retrace their steps after victory. When cryptocurrencies took up the banner of resisting centralization, they are now replicating the same power concentration: 80% of the assets are once again concentrated in the hands of 20% of the people, and the CEX, which was born in a fair, transparent, and open environment and has gradually become a pillar industry in the industry, seems to be more centralized than the banks on Wall Street.

This is the charm of history: when the old forces are decaying, new swordsmen will emerge. The human desire for fairness, transparency and freedom has never changed.

A brief discussion on the current state of the "crypto utopia" at the crossroads

CEX, the once self-proclaimed market overlord, is now embroiled in an inevitable market controversy. The wealth effect is gone, and it has become a pool for the outflow of new tokens, a "new home for the bagholders" and other scandals. Even Binance has been involved in multiple disputes over token listings and Meme comments.

The past exchanges, relying on the reckless expansion of market share and false trading volume, have been barely hanging on, but all of this has disappeared in the flowing river of time. When DEX first broke through 20% of CEX's trading volume, the market was like a shattered glass ball, with fragments scattered everywhere, and everyone could see the hidden cracks within.

• Pump.fun realizes the low-cost token issuance wishes of everyone in a new way;
• Polymarket uses on-chain prediction data to reveal the secrets of the crypto "black box";
• Hyperliquid, with lower fees than CEX and more attractive incentive mechanisms, accompanied by token issuance and the rapid rise of the $HYPE price, can be considered the best marketing campaign.

The old and the new are replaced, and the market is always swept by the latest narratives and innovative products, which is the inevitable reaction of the market. It's like building a casino on Mars, the old order is facing unprecedented shocks, and the crypto spirit is being inherited and innovated in a better way. Libertarians longing for the freedom of time and self-discipline in their crypto world, and crypto enthusiasts prefer the permissionless value network.

Breakthrough or transformation? The layout battle of various exchanges

The changes have quietly arrived, and some keen-sighted CEXs have started to take action.

First, Binance, the leader of CEX, as the top-ranked exchange, has been constrained by traditional financial asset management methods, frequently listing low-circulation, high-FDV VC coins, leading to frequent trust crises. But also accompanied by the shift of market attention, since the second half of 2024, Binance's frequency of listing Meme tokens has increased significantly, and it has used the Alpha section of the Binance web3 wallet as a "test field", having previously listed innovative tokens such as AIXBT, CGPT, and Cookie.

Secondly, OKX, as a key focus for compliance business development in 2024 and continued consolidation of its web3 wallet business, tends to take a moderate approach. Coinbase, as one of the exchanges most affected by US policies and reacting relatively quickly, has gradually expanded to more markets with a high frequency of token listings.

Among other exchanges, the one worth noting is LBank, which was the earliest to sense the winds of change. As early as 2023, it began to layout the Meme track and launched a $10 million Meme-specific fund, and in 2024 it focused on Meme, listing popular tokens such as Moodeng, Goat, ACT, and Slerf, all of which achieved over 50-fold gains. Compared to Gate and Bitget, it was more bold and grasped the information gap and time gap, achieving overtaking on the curve.

During this period, it also conducted in-depth research on the performance of the Meme market in 2024, screening the top 10 memecoins in terms of market capitalization, market share, and Meme performance in different ecosystems, the performance of new infrastructure, and the transformation of CEX towards Meme, showing a rigorous attitude towards Meme.

Crypto Revelation: From Bubble to True Awakening

With LBank's brand upgrade at the beginning of 2025, it seems that LBank is not satisfied with the status quo.

Recalling what LBank's former CEO Eric he said in the Space in 2024:

• "So-called value investing is actually a regression of the industry, and high valuations represent arrogance and prejudice to some extent."
• "Openness, transparency, and fairness will be the ultimate destination of CEX."
• "If CEX continues to cling to the decaying tradition and refuses to self-renew, the crypto market will eventually welcome the dawn of decentralization, and the era of DEX will be unstoppable."
• "Return to the original intention, let more users experience the effect of getting rich, and achieve savage growth in the bubble."

In his view, Memecoin has broken through the traditional investment barriers and provided equal opportunities for all participants. Although this is a high-risk track, as he said, "it may give birth to the next BTC or DOGE". Combined with LBank's recent brand upgrade, it is hard not to suspect that LBank may also follow the web3 wallet trend and enter the product-level differentiation PK.

Although currently, many CEXs have begun to explore the path of Web3, such as launching services closely integrated with wallet functions, in an attempt to occupy a place in the trend of decentralization. However, this "exchange + wallet" model, although it seems innovative, the core logic is to divert CEX users to their own ecosystem, rather than truly pursuing decentralization. For LBank, although the brand upgrade may imply its attention to the Web3 ecosystem, based on its historical behavior, it is most likely not to simply follow the trend and "walletize".

What kind of CEX+DEX do we need?

The discussion on CEX and DEX has never stopped, and the fundamental difference between the two is still one of the core controversies in the crypto market. CEX has dominated the crypto market in the past, establishing its hegemonic position through an efficient trading system, strong liquidity, and highly concentrated resources. However, with the gradual implementation of the decentralization concept, DEX has gradually risen and become a strong competitor to CEX. The biggest advantage of DEX is its decentralized nature, with more transparent transactions and users having more control, and transaction information and asset flows are almost unaffected by external factors.

Perhaps, in the future crypto market, CEX and DEX will no longer be two opposing poles, but a deeply integrated ecosystem. True innovation will be to inject decentralized elements on the basis of CEX's efficient trading and liquidity advantages, forming a "CEX+DEX" composite trading model. This model not only can maintain CEX's advantages in speed, liquidity, and resource concentration, but also can leverage DEX's transparency and user control to ensure the fairness and autonomy of the platform.

This does not mean that CEX needs to abandon its traditional operating model, but through gradual reform, to gradually integrate decentralized technology and governance into the existing structure. Specifically, CEX platforms can break through the limitations of the traditional model by introducing decentralized trading pools, smart contracts, and community governance, while ensuring trading efficiency, also providing users with higher control and transparency.

The real winners will be those platforms that can deeply integrate the concept of decentralization with efficient trading technology. LBank's strategic layout is precisely a key step in this process, as it tries to find a more market-oriented innovative path between CEX and DEX through innovative thinking and technology integration.

To be a reformer or to be reformed?

History has proven that in every major transformation, the established players are often abandoned by the times. Every market participant faces a choice: to stay in the old comfort zone, or to bravely embrace the new paradigm? To cling to existing interests, or to actively break through the barriers? The real winners will be those pioneers who dare to break the shackles and meet the challenges of the new era.

For the "undefeated generals" in the crypto market, CEXs are often full of controversy and security considerations. In the cruel reality where the token distribution model on the chain has already deviated from the traditional institutional investment and CEX listing routine, the history of crypto has shifted from being infrastructure-dominated to being application-centric, with truth and lies intertwined. It is a huge test whether to continue to be content with the status quo or to achieve transformation in this turning point.

The evolution of the market is not immutable. The real winners will be those pioneers who dare to break the old rules and embrace new opportunities. In this era of transformation, transparency, decentralization and innovation are the core values of the crypto market. Whether it's LBank or other CEX platforms, they can only stand out in the future crypto market by constantly examining their core values and breaking the existing framework.

The bugle of reform has sounded, and the old order is disintegrating. In this era full of opportunities and challenges, whether to become the driver of change or passively accept the change, the final answer will be written by history.