Non-Custodial & Cross-Chain Trading Trends 2025

Non-Custodial & Cross-Chain Trading: A key aspect of DeFi’s 2025 trajectory is the shift toward non-custodial exchanges and cross-chain liquidity solutions. After high-profile failures of centralized crypto exchanges, users have gravitated to DEXs and other self-custodial trading methods that let them retain control of their assets. This is evident in DEXs capturing a growing share of trading volume relative to centralized exchanges like DexTrade. In addition, the industry has tackled one of the long-standing challenges: trading across different blockchains without going through centralized intermediaries. Early cross-chain DEX solutions like ThorSwap/ThorChain have continued to gain users. ThorChain, for instance, enables native asset swaps between chains (e.g. swapping Bitcoin on the Bitcoin network for Ether on Ethereum) by utilizing decentralized liquidity pools and its RUNE intermediary asset . Unlike traditional “bridge” solutions that use wrapped tokens, ThorChain’s model swaps the real assets and has no central custodian – a significant security improvement. By 2025, ThorChain supports a range of major chains (BTC, ETH, BNB Chain, Litecoin, etc.) and has proven the viability of cross-chain AMMs, though it still supports fewer assets than an aggregate of all single-chain DEXs . Beyond liquidity pools, atomic swap technology has re-emerged as a promising avenue for trustless cross-chain trading. Atomic swaps allow two parties to exchange tokens across different blockchains directly, using a hashed timelock contract so that the swap either executes completely for both sides or not at all (ensuring no party can cheat)  . This concept has existed for years, but in 2025 it’s being integrated into user-friendly platforms and wallets.

Projects are leveraging atomic swaps to enable peer-to-peer exchanges that don’t rely on any third-party custody, which is attractive from a security standpoint. We’re also seeing cross-chain messaging protocols (like LayerZero and Axelar) being used under the hood of some DEX aggregators to facilitate multi-chain trades seamlessly, indicating that interoperability is a major focus. All these solutions – whether AMM-based or atomic – address the fragmentation of liquidity across many blockchains. As a result, cross-chain liquidity networks are much more mature in 2025, allowing users to move value between ecosystems more easily. From the user perspective, decentralized trading is becoming more convenient: one can trade assets from different chains with minimal friction, often through a single interface, while still maintaining self-custody. This trend is critical in the U.S., where regulatory pressures on centralized exchanges have led users to explore DeFi alternatives. Non-custodial and cross-chain services ensure that even if one on-ramp is closed, capital can flow to where it’s most effective in the crypto ecosystem. Going forward, experts see a blend of these technologies (AMMs, atomic swaps, cross-chain bridges) working in concert to deliver a “seamless multi-chain trading experience” , effectively making blockchain boundaries invisible to end-users.

DeFi Regulatory Landscape: The relationship between DeFi and regulation in the U.S. is complex as of 2025. On one hand, the permissionless, decentralized nature of DeFi protocols makes them challenging to regulate with traditional approaches.