Onchain perpetual futures trading has cooled for five consecutive months after peaking in October 2025, according to DefiLlama. Perpetual (perp) DEX volume declined from $1.36 trillion in October 2025 to $699 billion in March 2026.
The slide was gradual: volumes eased through November and December 2025 and continued to contract in the first quarter of 2026. Daily activity weakened as well — on April 4 perp DEX volume dropped to $8.4 billion, the first time it fell below $10 billion since Sept. 6, 2025, and the lowest daily total since July 5, 2025. Perp volumes are commonly used as a proxy for speculative demand and leveraged positioning in crypto markets, so the trend points to a broad cooldown after last year’s surge.
Trading remains concentrated among a few leading platforms. Over the past 30 days DefiLlama shows Hyperliquid reported roughly $185.5 billion in volume, about 34% of the top 10’s total, leaving it well ahead of peers such as edgeX ($73 billion) and Aster ($68 billion). Other reported 30‑day volumes include Lighter at about $50 billion, Grvt near $40 billion, and smaller venues like ApeX Protocol, Variational and StandX in the roughly $16 billion to $33 billion range. The distribution underscores that much of onchain perp activity is concentrated in a small number of dominant venues even as aggregate volumes have retreated from late‑2025 highs.
The slowdown follows a year of rapid expansion for onchain derivatives. In 2025 perp DEXs nearly tripled cumulative volume to $12.09 trillion, with roughly $7.9 trillion — about 65% of the total — generated during 2025 alone. That growth was driven partly by monthly activity averaging close to $1 trillion in the fourth quarter. Perpetual futures exchanges have become a key battleground across blockchains, with ecosystems competing to launch or host perp DEXs to capture trading flows, though liquidity has historically consolidated around a handful of leaders.
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