DEX Vertex has launched a new proposal to apply for 4.5 million ARB grants from Arbitrum DAO, only increasing trading volume and liquidity through Vertex's order book architecture, including supporting Vertex's fee discounts. The proposal states that this will bring several positive chain reactions to the entire Arbitrum ecosystem, including attracting more TVL to Arbitrum, increasing liquidity, and generating sequencer income.

Uniswap, a decentralized exchange (DEX), is requesting an on-chain vote to approve the second tranche of funding worth an estimated $62 million for its developer Uniswap Foundation. The vote will take place on October 4 and includes a buffer of 10% for price volatility. If approved, the funds will be used for operations and research grants to grow core protocol metrics and align incentives for stakeholders of the popular DEX. The funding request was split in two to allow more time to register its legal entity and receive non-profit status, with $17.3 million already received for building a software development kit for Uniswap V4 and supporting its subsequent migration.

On September 26th, according to DefiLlama data, the Total Value Locked (TVL) of lending protocols has surpassed that of DEX protocols, with assets worth $14.287 billion locked in smart contracts, rising to second place in the category rankings. In addition, liquidity staking protocols remain the largest protocol category with a TVL of $21.092 billion.

According to Solidus Labs, a market surveillance firm, over 20,000 crypto tokens have been subject to wash trading on decentralized exchanges (DEX) in the last three years. The firm's 2023 Crypto Market Manipulation Report found that almost 70% of a sample of 30,000 Ethereum-based DEX liquidity pools had executed wash trades since September 2020, amounting to around $2 billion worth of crypto.