State of the CLOB Wars (A1 x GSR): key findings of the 50-page report
Quote350 words
TL;DR of the A1 Research and GSR report: CLOBs hold over 71% of DEX volume, CEX-level performance is achieved, modular appchains compete with monolithic L1s, and application-controlled execution plus privacy and risk management are the next frontier.
Key claims
CLOBs command over 71% of DEX volume ($633B in the last month)
Modular appchains vs monolithic L1s is the core design split
Application-controlled execution is the key MEV mitigation
It's definitely a must-read (in full), but given how extensive it is, here is a quick TL;DR on the @a1research__ report on the CLOB Wars, co-authored with @GSR_io:
➤ The rise of the Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) is a permanent and significant paradigm shift, with CLOBs already commanding over 71% of DEX volume ($633 billion in the last month). This structural migration away from the Automated Market Maker (AMM) model is driven by an infrastructure revolution that finally made high-performance onchain trading possible.
➤ The long-standing performance gap between onchain trading and centralized exchanges has been closed. CEX-level performance is now a production-ready reality, with protocols like Hyperliquid (on a custom L1), Lighter (ZK rollup on Ethereum), Bullet (ZK-powered L2 appchain built on Solana/Celestia), Paradex (SN stack-based Starknet appchain on Ethereum) and Monaco (CLOB infra layer built on Sei) demonstrating sub-second finality and throughput in the hundreds of thousands of orders per second.
➤ The current competitive landscape is an infrastructural arms race between two competing philosophies: the modular approach, where teams assemble bespoke L2 appchains from existing infra components for speed and specialization, and the monolithic renaissance, where next-generation L1s and universally programmable real-time L2s achieve breakthrough performance through tight, vertical integration and composability through unified execution environments.
➤ With baseline CEX-level performance now achieved, the competitive battleground has moved beyond raw throughput to the engineering of fairer and more efficient markets. application-controlled execution, giving protocols granular control over transaction ordering, has emerged as the critical innovation to mitigate MEV, protect liquidity providers, and define the next generation of leading CLOBs.
➤ As the market matures, long-term institutional adoption and retail trust will be won not by technology alone, but by solving the final frontier of challenges. This includes delivering institutional-grade privacy without sacrificing performance and verifiability, navigating the nuanced trade-offs between decentralization and user experience, and building sophisticated risk management and insurance mechanisms to ensure market stability during extreme volatility (like we saw on the 10th of October).
Read the full 50+ page report here (part 1 quoted, part 2 in comments):
Part 2 of the report:
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What came next · since 17 Oct 2025
Since then
Zero has written 8 more pieces on A1 Research since this one.
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