Canto DEX Trading Volumes Bump 200% Ahead of Key Improvement Proposals

Trading volumes on the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) on Canto, a relatively new blockchain, surged by over 200% in the past 24 hours as traders bet on the latest layer 1 hype.

Canto, which runs on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) - a term for virtual computers that power the Ethereum network, is a cheap and fast network that allows developers to build financial products, such as those for lending and borrowing, atop the blockchain.

Applications running on Canto locked over $120 million worth of value as of Wednesday. The Canto DEX accounts for over 9% of this ecosystem. It uses smart contracts to match traders and rewards liquidity providers with tokens.

Canto token jumped 30% in the past 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows, bucking a market-wide slide.

The DEX processed over $63 million in trades in the past 24 hours, a bump from Monday’s figures of just $21 million, setting a new record high. The DEX has seen over $330 million in trading volumes this month so far.

Canto DEX has had $63.2 million in trading volume over the past 24 hours, a 201.15% increase from the previous day and it is now the 6th most popular DEX by trading volume on our Volume Dashboard pic.twitter.com/XSMAeSqOtC

— DefiLlama.com (@DefiLlama) January 25, 2023

A draw for traders is Canto DEX’s mechanisms to prevent “rent-seeking behaviors” – or tactics where predatory developers build products that solely extract value without benefiting the overall Canto ecosystem – as defined in its technical documents.

The protocol cannot be upgraded, has no official interface, and runs in perpetuity without the “ability to implement fees,” the documents read.

The trading volumes surged as some developers floated a proposal to launch Canto’s Contract Secured Revenue (CSR) on the main network.

According to the proposal, CSR is a fee splitting model for the Canto network that enables smart contract developers to earn from original work by claiming a percentage of the transaction fees paid to the network when users interact with their smart contracts.

These fees are distributed in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to developers, who could trade, stake, or post these NFTs as collateral for loans.

Such a method helps incentivize developers to build products that attract users, which in turn leads to higher revenues and usage of the Canto network, benefiting the CANTO token and related ecosystem.

CSR is currently being tested on a private testnet, or a blockchain that mimics real-world usage.

The CANTO token is currently trading at $0.31 at press time, according to CoinGecko.