Where a DEX runs, and what it actually trades

The DEX tab on the ranking used to filter venues by one field, a list of chains, and it meant different things for different rows. For a DEX it was the chains the protocol is deployed on. For a swap service it was empty — and an empty list passed every filter, so picking Bitcoin Cash put every swap service beside Cauldron for no reason the data knew. The tab now asks three questions separately: where a venue runs, which coins it trades, and whose tokens it trades.

Two questions in one filter

Cauldron runs on Bitcoin Cash and trades Bitcoin Cash, plus the CashTokens issued on it: for a DEX native to one chain the two answers coincide. Uniswap runs on Ethereum and on a long list of rollups and sidechains; it trades ETH on Ethereum and whatever tokens live on each of those chains. Ask Uniswap whether it trades Bitcoin and the honest answer is no — it trades tokens that claim Bitcoin, held by a custodian or a bridge somewhere else.

So the tab's filters are now three. Runs on is the infrastructure: the chains a DEX is deployed on. Trades is the cryptocurrency itself, on its own chain. Tokens on is the chains whose tokens a venue trades. A filter left on "any" narrows nothing; once narrowed, a venue has to publish a match to stay on the list.

A wrapped coin is a token on someone else's chain

Wrapped Bitcoin on Ethereum is a token whose value rests on Bitcoin held by a custodian. Bitcoin Cash on BNB Smart Chain is a token issued against Bitcoin Cash held somewhere else. ETH on a rollup is a claim on ETH locked in a bridge contract. Each can be useful; none is the coin. That is the counting rule seen from the trading side: an asset counts once, as itself, on its own chain. The Trades filter applies the same rule — a venue trades Bitcoin Cash only if it moves Bitcoin Cash on the Bitcoin Cash chain.

Which venues trade the coin itself

Sixteen of the largest cryptocurrencies, and the venues on the site's DEX list that trade each one as itself, as of 3 October 2026.

From the DEX list on the ranking, 3 October 2026. DEX on its own chain: a DEX deployed on the coin's chain. Cross-chain DEX: THORChain and Chainflip, which settle each coin on its own chain. Swap services: of the four that publish a currency list (Changelly, ChangeNOW, StealthEX, SideShift), how many list the coin itself; SimpleSwap and SilentSwap publish none. Coin and pool lists are read from each venue's own published data on every build.

What the table says

Bitcoin has no DEX on its own chain, and cannot have the kind that Ethereum has: its script language does not run the contracts an automated market maker needs. Real bitcoin changes hands without an exchange account in two ways — through a cross-chain protocol such as THORChain or Chainflip, which holds native BTC in vaults on the Bitcoin chain and settles the other side on the other coin's chain, or through a swap service. Dogecoin, Litecoin and Zcash are in the same position.

Further down, the list thins out entirely. For Monero, Cardano, Kaspa, Bitcoin SV, eCash, the only venues on the list that trade the coin itself are swap services. That is partly a statement about the chains and partly about the list: Cardano has DEXes of its own that the site does not carry yet, and the table says what the list holds, not what exists.

The chains built for contracts host DEXes by the dozen — Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche each have well over ten — and what those DEXes mostly trade is tokens. Bitcoin Cash is the exception among the UTXO chains: Cauldron runs on contracts on the Bitcoin Cash chain itself, so the coin and its CashTokens trade without leaving it. XRP and Stellar carry exchanges built into the ledger.

Swap services: multi-chain by what they move

A swap service runs on no chain of its own. A reader sends one coin and receives another, each on its own blockchain — no wrapped copy is involved — which is why the tab lists these services with the multi-chain DEXes and counts them under every chain whose coin they settle. The difference from a DEX is custody: the service holds the deposit for the minutes the swap takes and sends the other coin from its own wallets. For that window it is the counterparty, which is also why some of them ask for identity on larger amounts.

Which coins each one trades is read from the service's own public currency list on every build, and matched to the ranking by ticker and name, so a namesake token never counts as the coin. Two of the six publish no list a site can read; they appear on the tab when no coin is picked and drop out when one is, rather than being credited with coverage nobody has stated.

Using the filters

On the DEX tab: Runs on answers "which DEXes are built on this chain"; Trades answers "where can this coin itself be swapped"; Tokens on answers "where can the tokens of this chain be swapped". Picking Bitcoin Cash in Trades lists Cauldron, THORChain and the swap services that settle BCH; the same pick in Tokens on lists the venues that trade CashTokens.

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