Solana's DEX Surge A Mirage? The Centralization Elephant in the Room

Okay, let's talk about Solana. While everyone’s bathing in the DEX volume explosion, the first “Ethereum killer” moment. How about $1.21 trillion in 2025, surpassing Ethereum + BNB combined by a lot? Impressive on the surface, sure. However, other than the let’s-just-do-the-shiny-object thing. Are we so blinded by speed and cheap transactions that we're ignoring the giant, lumbering elephant stomping all over the decentralization principles we supposedly hold dear? I’m afraid I’m not convinced this new surge is a total victory. Not by a long shot.

Speed Isn't Everything, Is It?

Solana’s supporters love to brag about those magic 65,000 tps and those laughably cheap fees – fractions of a penny! A recent paper by Auerbach et al. further points to the growing enterprise adoption and estimates a $163B blockchain market by 2030, all of which is fueling the hype around this emerging technology. It feels like the future. Consider this: if a sports car can go 200 mph, but only on a track controlled by one company, is it really freedom?

The question we should be posing is, what’s the point of having that high-speed Ferrari when the road is in such disrepair? What are we sacrificing for this "scalability"? Speed is great, but not at the cost of the core tenet of blockchain: decentralization.

Ten Entities Control the Whole Game?

Here's the kicker, the fact that keeps me up at night: a Messari report from 2024 states that 70% of Solana's validators are controlled by just 100 entities. One hundred! That's not decentralization; that's a cartel. Instead we should just be using a slightly faster, slightly cheaper version of the old financial system.

Think about this: with that level of control, censorship becomes a very real possibility. Network manipulation? It’s actually pretty easy. A potential single point of failure that would let someone bring the whole thing crashing down?

We are now talking about an entire system that could easily be bent to the will of a very few, extremely powerful people. This replicates the same centralized structures that blockchain was initially intended to upend. It's ironic, isn't it? We’re on our way towards a “decentralized” future that would inadvertently mimic the past, albeit with a different tech stack.

Regulatory Capture: Inevitable or Avoidable?

Here's a particularly unsettling thought: the more centralized a system is, the easier it is for regulators to control. Governments love centralization. It makes their lives easier. That’s because a decentralized, truly permissionless system is a nightmare for them. A more centralized-ish system like Solana?

Or are we serving up regulators a silver platter, tempting them to come in and regulate the rules of the game themselves? Are we blithely walking into a future where “decentralized finance” has simply become the latest iteration of a very big, very regulated, deeply connected, centrally controlled space? Maybe, I don’t know, but I am extremely doubtful.

We need to require a whole lot more transparency from Solana. We cannot assume that greater decentralization will happen. We need to actively fight for it. They urge developers to focus on solutions that center equity and more evenly distribute power among stakeholders. This is where the community has to keep the project’s feet to the fire.

Otherwise, this DEX volume surge? It's just a mirage. A beautiful gloss that covers up the centralization elephant in the room, poised to stomp the very principles that endeared us to the ride in the first place. Let's not get blinded by the hype. Let’s push for real decentralization, or we will be stuck with something much worse than the status quo we hope to upend.

Here's a quick comparison table: