The on-chain perpetual trading market is experiencing significant shifts and growth that continue to redefine the competitive landscape. As of today, September 27, according to data shared by market analyst Phoenix Group, the globe perpetuals DEX weekly trading volumes exceeded $64 billion. Catalysts responsible for this growth include advancing innovative trading platforms striving to fulfil users’ needs and the surging demand from customers hunting for decentralized financial offerings. As per the data, perpetual DEXs (decentralized exchanges) are gaining popularity not just from institutional investors but also from retail traders who are willing to trade up to 1000x leverage. As the demand for seamless and convenient DEXs grows, the analyst tracked top-performing on-chain perpetual trading platforms by their trading volumes.
Top Perp DEX Platforms Commanding Transaction Activity
Aster
Aster, a decentralized perpetuals trading platform backed by YZi Labs, formerly Binance Lab, is at the top of the list. Amid the ongoing cryptocurrency market turbulence, Aster’s weekly perpetual DEX trading volume reached a whopping $27.5 billion, overtaking Hyperliquid’s $13.4 billion. Over the past week, Aster experienced massive surges in active futures contracts, an indicator that traders are flocking to the new decentralized perpetual contract exchange, challenging its biggest competitor, Hyperliquid. The major contributing factor to Aster’s growth is endorsement from former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ).
Hyperliquid
Despite being the largest on-chain decentralized perpetual contract exchange, Hyperliquid is second on the list. By processing a weekly perpetual trading volume reached $13.4 billion, compared to Aster’s outstanding performance, implies that Hyperliquid is facing the challenge of user decline. Despite experiencing challenges, Hyperliquid is still the market leader, and its advantages remain evident. Its Layer-1 blockchain’s high performance and cheaper transaction costs make traders prefer the platform. Launched in November 2024, Hyperliquid’s rapid growth immensely attracted institutional interest.
Lighter
Next is Lighter, a decentralized perpetual contract exchange built on Ethereum. As reported in the data, Lighter processed a weekly trading volume of $9 billion, showing its dominant role in the decentralized perpetuals sector. Latest metrics, as of September 23, showed that emerging platforms (Aster and Lighter) have absorbed substantial market shares from the once undisputed market leader, Hyperliquid. Currently, Hyperliquid’s market share has declined to 38% while a16z-backed Lighter and Binance Labs-backed Aster control 16.8% and 14.9%, respectively.
EdgeX
EdgeX, a Layer-2 blockchain offering perpetual futures trading running on top of Ethereum, solidified its place among the top on-chain perpetuals exchanges and elite cryptocurrencies. The DEX processed a trading volume of $6.1 billion over the past seven days, making it the fourth-largest on-chain derivatives trading project.
Jupiter Perpetuals
The fifth in this list is Jupiter Perpetuals, a derivatives protocol on Solana, offering perpetual contract trading services. Over the past week, Jupiter registered a weekly perpetual trading volume of $1.1 billion.
Other Top Market Performers
Other top-performing perpetual platforms, as highlighted in the data, include DIME, ORDER, REYA, APEX, AVNT, RHO, Ostium, Hibachi, Sun, and MKL. DIME facilitated $952 million in perp trading activity over the week, putting it at number 6 in this list. ORDER, a decentralized trading platform, recorded a weekly trading volume of $681 million. It was followed by REYA, which processed a perpetual trading volume of $621 million, and others.
