In this article, We aim to look at the second week of May saw some huge volatility in the market and prompted many to sell their volatile assets and take a flight to safety. What did the volume look like in decentralized exchanges on ethereum during that period? Which assets were being sold/bought the most?

Since we already know about Sushiswap, let’s briefly discuss it before we examine its swap volume during the recent market volatility caused by Terra. Sushiswap is one of the most prominent DEXs (or AMMs) on the Ethereum protocol. Due to the Vampire Attack on Uniswap, it attracted a lot of attention on its initial launch. As with Uniswap V2, Sushiswap uses smartcontracts and 50%-50% paired token liquidity pools to facilitate distributed swaps.
SUSHI is an ERC-20 token from Sushiswap, primarily used for governance, staking, and earning rewards. When a user performs a swap on Sushiswap, 0.05% of the transaction fee is distributed to holders of xSUSHI (acquired by staking SUSHI).
XSUSHI tokens are also used as utility tokens in the governance process. By voting on upgrades and changes to the Sushiswap protocol, the XSUSHI holders can influence these decisions.  

The LUNA price fell 96% in a day on May 12th, 2022, pushing it down to less than 10 cents. In the tweet below, we can see what emergency actions have been taken on Terra Network by the TFL.

3/ TFL is also initiating three more emergency actions:

1. Proposal to burn the remaining UST in the community pool.
2. TFL will burn the remaining 371 million UST cross-chain on Ethereum.
3. TFL just staked 240 million $LUNA to defend from network governance attacks.

— Terra 🌍 Powered by LUNA 🌕 (@terra_money) May 12, 2022

As a result of all these emergency actions, the other crypto market also faced a lot of volatility during these days (May 9th to 13th, 2022). In Sushiswap, we can see the swap volumes were changed by purchasing assets or by selling assets in a variety of ways. Here in this dashboard we’re going to show the changes and dive into the details.

Here from the below graph we can see the DEX swap volume in the May 2022. A maximum swapped amount of $471.41M was recorded on May 12, 2022. There was a decreasing trend in the amount swapped. Total Swapped Amount in May 13, 2022 is lower than normal, but higher than normal in May 11, 2022.A maximum of 20.55K swaps was observed on May 11, 2022.In May 11, 2022, there were more swaps than usual.

There was a maximum swap volume of $1.8B in W19(May 8th-14th), 2022. On May 11th and 12th, we can observe that swap volumes are very high compared with other dates in this week.

From the below graph we can see the daily top 10 assets which are sold in May 2022 on Sushiswap. In this graph we can see a most of the time WETH is sold out of top 10 assets . And also especially we can see on these May 11th and 12th 2022, there is even more amount of WETH was sold in Suhiswap . It might be the reason of because of the market volatility .In the period of May 1, 2022 through May 24, 2022, $2.29B was Sold out. More than half of the total swapped out amount was contributed by WETH assets in the Top 10. With $1.37B (WETH) being Swapped Out most, this is the highest Swapped Out Amount. A maximum swapped out amount of $367.84M was observed on May 12, 2022. Swapped Out Amount shows a declining trend. The total swapped out amount in May 11, 2022 was higher than normal.

On May 11th and 12th 2022, mostly DAI and USDC were sold in assets as opposed to other dates in May 2022 when ETH is excluded from top ten assets sold. If we observe the May 12th 2022 exchange, there was a WBTC traded out for $5.46M. It is likely that it happened because the Bitcoin sale happened on that specific day to save the Terra network.

From the below graph we can see the daily top 10 assets which are purchased in May 2022 on Sushiswap. In this graph we can see a most of the time WETH is purchased out of top 10 assets . And also especially we can see on these May 11th and 12th 2022, there is even more amount of WETH was purchased in Suhiswap . It might be the reason of because of the market volatility . In the period of May 1, 2022 through May 24, 2022, $2.32B was purchased in. More than 59% of the total swapped in amount was contributed by WETH assets in the Top 10. With $1.38B (WETH) being Swapped in most, this is the highest Swapped in Amount. A maximum swapped in amount of $371.18M was observed on May 12, 2022. Swapped in Amount shows a declining trend. The total swapped out amount in May 11, 2022 was higher than normal.

On May 11th and 12th 2022, mostly DAI and USDC were purchased in assets as opposed to other dates in May 2022 when ETH is excluded from top ten assets purchased. If we observe the May 12th 2022 purchases, there was a WBTC traded in for $6.6M. Because the Bitcoin purchases were made on that particular day due to a drop in its price, it is likely that it happened. Volatility in the crypto market played a role in this as well.

As you can see in the below graph, the top 10 assets purchased between May 9th and May 13th, 2022. In the period from May 9, 2022 to May 13, 2022, $958.11M was swapped. The WETH asset purchased is the most significant contributor (76.63%) to the total swapped amount among all other assets. A maximum swapped amount of $339.59M was observed on May 12, 2022.

As you can see in the below graph, the top 10 assets sold between May 9th and May 13th, 2022. In the period from May 9, 2022 to May 13, 2022, $933.06M was swapped out. The WETH asset sold in the most significant contributor (77.59%) to the total Sold amount among all other assets. A maximum swapped in of $337.11M was observed on May 12, 2022.

Observations

• Based on the above analysis, if we look at the DEX swap volume in May 2022.  An amount of $471.41M was recorded as a maximum swapped amount on May 12, 2022. Also, on May 11, 2022, there were a maximum of 20.55K swaps. In May 11, 2022, there were more swaps than usual.
• Additionally, we can see that on May 11th and 12th 2022, there was even more WETH sold in Suhiswap. Market volatility might be responsible for this. More than half of the total swapped out amount came from WETH assets in the Top 10. 
• Particularly, we can see that even more WETH was purchased in Suhiswap on May 11th and 12th 2022. The market may have been volatile at the time.  Over 59% of the total swapped in amount was provided by WETH assets in the Top 10.
• On May 11th and 12th 2022, mostly USDC and DAI were purchased as assets, as opposed to other dates in May 2022 when ETH was excluded from the top ten assets purchased.
• When we look at the top 10 assets that were bought between May 9th and May 13th, 2022, the WETH asset purchased represented the largest percentage of the total swapped amount (76.63%).
• Looking at the top 10 assets sold between May 9th and May 13th, 2022, the WETH asset is the most significant contributor (77.59%) to the total swapped in amount.
• Based on all these observations, we can conclude that the WETH assets were sold/bought the most during the period May 9th-13th,2022.