SEI Q3 spot trading volume reaches $4.6 billion: The rise of the on-chain CLOB trading ecosystem
Key points
Sei network spot trading volume reached $3.96 billion in Q3 2025 (July 1 - September 30 UTC) (data from authoritative Messari report), a 75% increase quarter-over-quarter, with an average daily trading volume of $43 million. The on-chain CLOB (Central Limit Order Book) protocol is rapidly emerging, with next-generation order book DEXs, represented by Oxium, contributing approximately 19% of spot trading volume. This signifies substantial progress in Sei's strategic transformation from a traditional AMM to a high-frequency trading infrastructure.
Q3 Spot Trading Volume Analysis
Authoritative data verification
| Data source | Q3 Total Transaction Volume | Average daily trading volume | Month-on-month growth | Data Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Messari report | $3.96 billion | $43 million | +75% QoQ | December 2025 |
| Sei Official Statement | $4.6 billion | Unclear | Continued growth | December 26, 2025 |
| Dune on-chain data | $1.41 billion | Approximately US$15.34 million | Partial coverage | Q3 period |
Explanation of data discrepancies : Messari, an independent research institution commissioned by the Sei Aster Foundation, derived the most authoritative total of $3.96 billion (43M x 92 days) through a comprehensive analysis of DefiLlama, on-chain data, and direct statistics from the CLOB protocol. The official figure of $4.6 billion may include peak periods or broader protocol coverage. Dune's on-chain aggregation only captures standard AMM exchanges and does not fully account for emerging CLOBs such as Oxium, resulting in an underestimation of approximately 65%.
Quarterly performance comparison
| Quarter | Average daily spot trading volume | Month-on-month growth | Key drivers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | Approximately US$24.6 million | - | AMM-dominated period |
| Q3 2025 | $43 million | +75% | The Rise of CLOB + Stablecoin Integration |
Q3 marks Sei's fifth consecutive quarter of QoQ growth, making it one of the fastest-growing EVM chains in terms of spot trading volume in 2025.
The rise of the on-chain CLOB ecosystem
Core CLOB Protocol Contributions
| protocol | type | Average daily trading volume (Q3) | Total trading volume (Q3) | market share | Launch time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxium | Hybrid CLOB-AMM | $8.2 million | $754 million | 19% | June 2025 |
| DragonSwap | AMM | $13.2 million | $1.21 billion | 31% | Early |
| Sailor | AMM (Mainstream Cryptocurrencies/Stablecoins) | $10.2 million | $940 million | twenty four% | Early |
| Carbon DeFi | Order Book DEX | $112,000 | $10.3 million | 0.26% | V1 stage |
Oxium's performance : As the first native high-performance CLOB, it quickly became the third largest spot protocol after its launch in June, with Q3 fee revenue of $105,000. It deepened market depth through the integration of spSEI (Splashing Stake liquidity staking token). In December, it expanded its hybrid liquidity connection with Yei Finance, solidifying its leading position in the CLOB market.
Monaco Protocol : A "Wall Street-level" CLOB incubated by Sei Labs, launched on August 18th, focusing on spot/perpetual contracts (up to 100x leverage), with execution latency <1ms and settlement time of 400ms (200,000 times faster than traditional T+1). It attracts DEXs, wallets, and game integrations through the PitPass revenue-sharing model, becoming a new growth engine in Q4.
Carbon DeFi : Bancor's order book DEX supports limit/range/recurring orders. In Q3, its on-chain transaction volume was $10.3 million (decreasing monthly: $7.7 million in July → $1 million in September), with a total transaction volume of $80 million (as of the end of 2025). It is on the fringes of the CLOB competition.
Citrex Markets : The first CLOB to launch in January 2025, mainly consisting of perpetual contracts (cumulative $3.09 billion), with an extremely low spot TVL ($1,909). Its Q3 contribution was not disclosed separately, but it participated in the early development of the CLOB ecosystem.
CLOB infrastructure upgrade
Sei Giga upgrade :
- Target performance : 5 gigagas/second throughput (approximately 200,000 TPS), settlement time <400ms
- Core technologies : Autobahn multi-proposer consensus, asynchronous execution model, refactored EVM client, next-generation CLOB module
- MEV Innovation : Multi-Concurrency Proposer (MCP) mechanism, supporting transaction latency of <1ms
- Current status : White paper released in May 2025; still undergoing development network testing in December (node latency optimized by 10-40 times); mainnet not yet online but continuously being validated.
The Giga upgrade demonstrated sustained performance of 200,000 TPS on the open network in August, providing sub-second finality for CLOBs such as Monaco through parallelized EVM, becoming a key anchor for the community's expectations of Sei's high-frequency trading capabilities.
Ecosystem Integration and Partners
Stablecoin infrastructure
| Stablecoins | Integration method | Launch time | Market capitalization (Sei) | Impact of the transaction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDC | Circle Native Casting + CCTP V2 | July 10, 2025 | Dominant | Deepen CLOB liquidity |
| USDT0 | LayerZero OFT unified USDT | April 9, 2025 | Cross-chain liquidity | Reduce slippage |
| PYUSD | PayPal expands through LayerZero | 2025 | New channels | Institutional deposits |
| FastUSD | Elixir-backed yield stablecoins | 2025 | Integrating DragonSwap | Transaction fee optimization |
Stablecoin market capitalization : The total market capitalization of stablecoins on Sei is $98 million (7-day +13%). The native USDC has become the main benchmark for the CLOB trading pair after migrating from Noble IBC. CCTP V2 enables cross-chain instant settlement.
Strategic Partner (December 2025)
Market infrastructure grid integration:
- Circle (USDC/CCTP), Tether (USDT0), PayPal (PYUSD), Revolut
- Ondo and Securitize : BlackRock/Apollo RWA products, with $20.3 million in tokenized assets deployed on Sei.
- LayerZero , Wormhole , deBridge : Cross-chain liquidity hubs
- KAIO and CoinList : Ecosystem Incubation and Compliant Listing
These integrations provide CLOB DEX with unified liquidity, institutional-grade deposit and withdrawal channels, and RWA trading scenarios, supporting the surge in trading volume in Q3.
On-chain activity and fees
Network activity (Q3 2025)
| index | Q3 value | Month-on-month growth | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily active address | 824,000 | +93.5% | Nearly double by 2025 |
| Average number of daily transactions | 2 million | +87% | Including game transactions |
| Q3 total number of transactions | Approximately 180 million | - | Transaction-related accounts for 7%. |
| DEX transaction count | 12.31 million | - | Monthly decrease (July 5.88 million → September 2.8 million) |
Transaction volume trend : The number of DEX transactions decreased by 52% from July to September (5.88 million → 2.8 million), but the overall on-chain transactions maintained high growth due to the boom in gaming (116 million transactions were generated in Q3, with an average of 805,000 addresses per day), reflecting the shift of capital from speculation to application scenarios.
Expenses and Revenue
| protocol | Q3 Total Expenses and Revenue | Daily income | Rate Estimation |
|---|---|---|---|
| DragonSwap | $2.72 million | Approximately US$29,600 | 0.3% average |
| Sailor | $2.14 million | Approximately US$23,300 | 0.3% average |
| Oxium | $105,000 | Approximately US$1,142 | CLOB low rates |
| Full-chain estimation | $5 million to $7 million | $54,000 - $76,000 | Combined AMM+CLOB |
Sei DeFi TVL decreased from $609 million in Q2 to $455.6 million in Q3 (-25.2%), but the surge in trading volume reflects the characteristics of "high turnover and low retention". The CLOB low-fee model sacrifices the per-transaction revenue in exchange for frequency.
Community sentiment and market narrative
Key narratives (July-December 2025)
Trading volume milestones :
- Stablecoin trading volume surpassed $50 billion in July.
- September's cumulative token trading volume exceeded $130 billion.
- In October, on-chain DEX trading volume exceeded $10 billion over 12 months.
Giga upgrade expectations :
- The 200,000 TPS continuous test on the development network in August has attracted significant attention from the community.
- The multi-concurrency proposer mechanism is considered a breakthrough in the MEV solution, comparable to Ethereum.
- This overlaps with the deployment of BlackRock/Apollo RWA and the Q4 ETF application window, reinforcing its "institutional-grade infrastructure" positioning.
CLOB DEX Hot Topics :
- Monaco integrates Chainlink oracles, covering price data for 300+ stocks (November), expanding CLOB to traditional financial assets.
- Yei Finance launched the $CLO token (a non-custodial money market) in October, sparking discussions about multi-tiered liquidity in Sei DeFi.
- In October, Sei surpassed Sui and Polygon in terms of active addresses and DEX trading volume, attributed to CLOB optimization.
KOL Opinions
| account | Key points | time |
|---|---|---|
| @MarcShawnBrown | Sei's trading volume surpasses that of ICP and KAVA, demonstrating its market dominance. | September 2025 |
| @H0ogie | Giga is progressing smoothly, and ecosystem integration continues to advance. | Summer 2025 |
| @AltCryptoGems | Sei is evolving rapidly, and CLOB's progress is bringing benefits and airdrop opportunities. | October 2025 |
| @Kaffchad | Giga MEV research or resetting L1 design standards | December 2025 |
| @SeiNetworkOfficial | BlackRock/Apollo's tokenized products are now available. | End of 2025 |
Overall sentiment : Bullish dominance prevails, with no significant bearish voices meeting the quality threshold. The community views the surge in trading volume, Giga performance breakthroughs, and institutional inflows as signals of Sei's entry into global financial infrastructure, while the CLOB DEX upgrade is described as a "high-speed alternative to traditional chains."
in conclusion
Sei network spot trading volume reached $3.96 billion in Q3 2025 (authoritative data from Messari), a 75% increase quarter-over-quarter, validating its "first parallelized EVM" capabilities in high-frequency trading scenarios. The on-chain CLOB ecosystem, represented by Oxium (average $8.2 million daily) and Monaco Protocol (Wall Street-level execution speed), is rapidly emerging, accounting for approximately 20% of the spot trading share, marking a structural shift from AMM-dominated to order book trading.
Key drivers include: (1) native integration of stablecoins such as Circle, Tether, and PayPal to enhance liquidity; (2) Giga's upgrade to 200,000 TPS verification to provide CLOB with a sub-second finality technology foundation; (3) the launch of BlackRock/Apollo RWA products to attract institutional funds; and (4) the expansion of the user base with 824,000 daily active addresses (+93.5% QoQ) and gaming applications (116 million transactions in Q3).
While the 25% drop in TVL reflects short-term capital outflows, the simultaneous growth in trading volume and activity demonstrates the characteristics of a mature trading market characterized by "high turnover and low retention." With the launch of the Giga mainnet, the expansion of the Monaco ecosystem, and the deployment of more RWA scenarios, Sei is expected to further solidify its leading position as the on-chain CLOB trading infrastructure in 2026. The current challenge lies in translating trading frequency into sustainable TVL growth and balancing liquidity and yield in the CLOB fee competition.