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Nowadays, new assets launch every minute, with some reaching billion dollar valuations before ever appearing on CeFi venues. Earlier this year, we saw $TRUMP reach a market cap of $15B and trade $85.5B in volume before Coinbase even listed the token.
With the rise of derivative exchanges and novel yield products on new chains, even the most sophisticated traders struggle to capture maximum value, effectively manage positions, and efficiently move assets across multiple protocols. This has created lucrative opportunities for retail investors, traders, and institutions who can navigate this convoluted onchain maze.
It’s clear that decentralized protocols are rivaling centralized exchanges head on. Last year, total DEX trading volume was on par with Coinbase’s trading volume of $1.2 trillion. Recently, Jupiter's daily volumes have grown to approximately 20% of Coinbase's, exceeding $40B in monthly volume in February 2025.
This shift isn't just about trading volume. Many tokens trade exclusively on DEXs as onchain venues have become increasingly competitive on execution quality, providing deeper liquidity and tighter spreads.
As this activity shifts more towards decentralized protocols, we are seeing a new generation of trading platforms emerge. The archetype of these users spans from asset managers broadening their asset selection universe to casual traders who are discovering new memetics.
However, in the past, trading across DeFi was limited to those intimately familiar with the various protocols, felt comfortable bridging large sums of money across multiple chains, and probably required some level of technical expertise in order to trigger stop losses, limit orders, TWAPs, and more.
At Strobe, we’ve observed that there’s now a spectrum of DeFi traders, who range in level of sophistication and what they prioritize (e.g., speed, mobile or desktop first, convenience, UX, price). We believe there are multiple billion dollar outcomes serving each of these cohorts of users, and we are already beginning to see these platforms emerge.
At one end of the spectrum are retail users who discover memes on TikTok and share jokes with friends within social chats. These users prefer convenience, mobile-first experiences, and their trading is innately social in nature.
As such, they prefer to use interfaces like Bankr on Farcaster and X to directly purchase tokens on the feed, or leverage agents to help them execute across chains. Many of these users love to share memes within group chats or see what tokens their friends are purchasing. This cohort of traders often executes directly on apps like Frens, Vector, and Moonshot, or directly via Telegram trading bots (e.g., pvptrade, Pocket Protector, and Bullx). Simple consumer-friendly interfaces offer highly abstracted but often expensive entry points, charging up to 2.5% per transaction.
Somewhere in between the institutional and retail are the crypto-native traders. These users feel comfortable interacting directly with DEX aggregators like Uniswap and Jupiter, or from their native wallet, which provides protocol access with moderate fees but limited trading tools and analytics.
When it comes to serving institutions, OTC desks, and DeFi whales that need to trade with size, it’s paramount to get the best execution price because small differences can translate to tens of thousands of dollars. In a world where liquidity is spread across hundreds of pools, finding this optimal execution path is essentially not feasible without automation. This is where Definitive comes in.
Definitive is an advanced onchain trading platform built to bring institutional-grade trade execution to DeFi. Created by a team of Coinbase Institutional Trading alumni and active DeFi experts, Definitive combines the sophisticated trading capabilities typically reserved for centralized venues with the permissionless, non-custodial attributes of decentralized finance. Think Coinbase Advanced but for DeFi.
The platform’s smart order router aggregates liquidity across 100+ DEXs, liquidity pools and market makers, providing superior execution prices and enabling users to trade with minimal market impact across any token across EVM and Solana.
Individual Traders such as DeFi whales and yield farmers seek sophisticated tools for interacting with protocols but with a "Binance-esque" experience. They are also rolling out a mobile app with an intuitive UX and all the same advanced trading capabilities.
OTC Desks face growing institutional demand for trending tokens unavailable on centralized exchanges. They are able to plug into Definitive's smart order router that taps 100+ liquidity sources. This enables them to serve the likes of Franklin Templeton and Fidelity as these institutions accelerate their onchain activities.
VCs, Family Offices, DAOs need to strategically manage positions across chains with minimal market impact and detailed reporting. Many of them demand institutional-grade execution tools that they are accustomed to in traditional finance.
Strategic Partners such as wallets, aggregators, and custodians can white-label DeFi yields and trading capabilities to their end users via Definitive's API.
As DeFi gets more and more convoluted, there are more traditional fintech players, AI agents, crypto front ends, and other consumer-friendly interfaces that are looking to abstract away this complexity while still plugging into DeFi rails.
Definitive is positioning itself as the execution layer for this emerging landscape of agents, frontends, and wallets. Today, AI agents can only perform very simple swaps, and users can't trust them to execute trades efficiently or manage complex strategies. Definitive's API and execution capabilities provide the perfect foundation for this future—where AI-powered apps can navigate this complex multi-chain world on behalf of users, but with the sophisticated execution quality that institutions demand.
At Strobe, we are excited about the DeFi mullet. We have seen successful examples with companies like Morpho enabling bitcoin-backed loans within Coinbase’s main app, allowing Coinbase CEX users to borrow USDC against their bitcoin holdings. We believe we will see more DeFi mullets across not only CEXes like Robinhood and Revolut, but also agents and social interfaces.
With more onchain apps emerging across sports, media, social, trading, and other categories, many of these apps will require a DeFi execution engine that enables features beyond simple swaps. As this trend accelerates, Definitive is also launching their DeFi Execution API, which will serve as the connective tissue for this rapidly evolving landscape. In a world where alpha is increasingly found onchain, the winners will be those with the infrastructure to capture it efficiently, securely, and at scale.
Definitive is live here. You can learn more here.
The views expressed here are those of the individual Strobe Ventures LP (“Strobe”) personnel quoted and are not the views of Strobe or its affiliates. Certain information has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by Strobe. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, Strobe has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the current or enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; Strobe has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein. Learn more about Strobe Ventures at strobe.fund.
Winnie Lau, Thomas Klocanas and Steven Venino
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nowadays, new assets launch every minute, with some trading in the billions before even touching cefi venues. in the past, trading across defi was limited to those intimately familiar with the various protocols, felt comfortable bridging large sums of assets across multiple chains, and probably required some level of technical expertise in order to automate and manage positions. at @strobefund, we’ve observed that there’s now a spectrum of defi traders, who range in level of sophistication and what they prioritize (eg speed, mobile or desktop first, convenience, UX, price). and we believe there are multiple billion dollar outcomes serving each of these cohorts of users.
at one end of the spectrum are retail users who discover memes on tiktok and share jokes with friends within social chats. these users prefer convenience, mobile-first experiences, and their trading is innately social in nature. as such, they prefer to use interfaces like @bankr to directly purchase tokens on the feed, or leverage agents to help them execute across chains. many of these users love to share memes within group chats or see what tokens their friends are purchasing. this cohort of traders often executes directly on apps like @frens, vector, moonshot, or directly via telegram trading bots.
at @strobefund, we are excited about the defi mullet, and have seen successful examples with companies like @morpho enabling Bitcoin-backed loans within Coinbase’s main app. we believe we will see more defi mullets across not only CEXes like Robinhood and Revolut, but also AI agents, social interfaces, and retail-friendly apps.
when it comes to serving institutions, OTC desks, and defi whales that need to trade with size, it’s paramount to get the best execution price because small differences can translate to tens of thousands of dollars. in a world where liquidity is spread across hundreds of pools, finding this optimal execution path is essentially not feasible without automation. this is where @definitive comes in.
https://blog.strobe.fund/the-alpha-is-onchain with more onchain apps emerging across social, prediction markets, sports, trading, and other categories, many of these apps will require a defi execution engine that enables features beyond simple swaps. learn more about our thinking here, and how definitive's API can serve as the connective tissue for this rapidly evolving landscape.