Author：hellobtc

Compiled by: Plain Language Blockchain

sinceHyperliquidSince its inception, the perpetual contract DEX sector has entered its most competitive phase. Trading volume in the industry has grown from $647.6 billion in 2023 to...More than $1.2 trillion by 2025Even during the market crash of October 10-11, 2025, its market share rose to [missing information].26% of global perpetual futures trading volume.

At the time, Hyperliquid accomplished what was considered an impossible task: they built a...A trading platform that truly challenges Binance (BN)And thereby occupiedDecentralized perpetual contract trading volume accounts for over 70%.However, emerging Perp DEXs are constantly appearing, with new platforms appearing almost daily.

But why are there so many on-chain perpetual contract platforms now? Is it simply because of Hyperliquid's huge success? While that's true, and Perp DEX has become a lucrative field, the fundamental reason lies in the fact that before 2025, the competition in Perp DEX primarily focused on technology (relying on higher-performance L1, advanced ZK proof systems, and high-throughput DA layers); andBy 2025, competition will have shifted from technology to incentives..

The current industry landscape shows that emerging Perp DEXs are exerting increasing pressure, offering...Significant delays, lower costs, and highly attractive incentive programs..

now,Hyperliquid's market share has shrunk significantly to around 20%.Emerging platforms pose a real threat. For example,VariationalNot only did they attract users through airdrops/points programs, they also launched...Refund for Trading LossesFunction.

In October 2025, trading volume reached a record $1.2 trillion, almost double that of the previous month. This was primarily driven by **incentives (credit programs and airdrops)**. The sector has become one of the most successful narratives in the airdrop space. Protocols prepare to distribute millions of dollars in airdrops to drive liquidity and user activity.

This paper analyzes the opportunity set in the Perp DEX landscape and highlights practical farming strategies.

now,Hyperliquid's market share has fallen to around 20%..For example,VariationalNot only did they attract users through airdrops/points programs, they also launched...Refund for Trading LossesFunctionality. In October 2025, transaction volume reached a record $1.2 trillion, primarily driven by...Points program and airdropThe protocol is ready to distribute millions of dollars in airdrops to drive liquidity and user activity.

8 Perp DEXs Worth Waiting For

The main risk with Perp DEX is that some DEXs have no plans to issue tokens at all, and some eventually become worthless and not worth the time (e.g.,$VOOI Some DEXs exist primarily to collect transaction fees from users. Therefore, the core question is never "Can I mine?", but rather "Is mining worthwhile?"

This section identifies Perp DEXs worth your time based on trading volume, open interest, user growth, and cost-effectiveness. The data is primarily from DefiLlama and is current as of January 16, 2026.

Paradex V2

Paradex is a system built onStarknet's first application chainPrivacy-oriented Perp DEX. It provides...Zero transaction feesIt offers deep liquidity across hundreds of crypto and pre-market assets, atomic-level settlement, institutional-grade privacy features, and a mobile-optimized interface.

Architecturally, it is designed as a unified DeFi ecosystem, encompassing the Paradex trading platform, the Paradex chain, and...XUSD(On-chain native synthetic US dollars powered by DIME Token).

• Key features:* Gundam50x leverage

  • Low fees: Maker orders 0.02%, Taker orders 0.05%

  • Full margin function

  • ZK-Rollup technology with Ethereum-level security

• Growth indicators:

  • TVL: Approx.$220 million(Nearly 6 times more than at the beginning of 2025)

  • Total trading volume: US$206 billion

  • Open Interest (OI): Approximately $620 million

  • 30-day trading volume: $36 billion

• Points program:Paradex is currently inSeason 2Distributed to active traders every Friday4 million XP (points).

  1. Register and set up an account on Paradex, then connect your EVM wallet.

  2. Set your nickname. Bind X/Discord to pass the Witch's censorship and gain the Community XP bonus.

  3. Deposit USDC and start trading.

  4. passPosition size XP, transaction fees XP, and even liquidation XPProfit.

  5. Provide liquidity to the vault to obtain XP.

  6. Share your referral link and earn 10% of the invitee's XP.

 edgeX

edgeX is a platform that offers perpetual and spot trading.L2 trading platformOriginally incubated by Amber Group on StarkEx, it is now transforming into...EDGE ChainEthereum L2 is designed specifically for high-throughput financial applications.

• Key features:* Based on StarkNet (zk-Rollup) — Extremely fast settlement.

  • Up to 50 times leverage

  • Transaction fees: Maker 0.02% / Taker 0.05%(Lowest price in its class)

  • Based on the Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) model

• Market performance:

  • Weekly trading volume: $21.59 billion

  • 30-day trading volume: $84.58 billion (consistently ranked in the top 5)

  • Open Interest (OI): $1.2 billion

  • TVL: $422 million

• Points program:The **Pre-TGE Season** began on January 7, 2026. XP is distributed weekly until the event is scheduled to begin.TGE conducted before March 31, 2026.

  1. Go to the edgeX platform to create a trading account.

  2. Prioritize spot tradingTo enjoy trading volume3x XP.

  3. Transactions can be completed via mobile app.1.2x bonus.

  4. holdMARU TokenIt can unlock additional XP multipliers.

  5. Trading losses account for 10% of the weekly XP allocation..

  6. Participate in the Vault or TVL scheme to obtain a 10% share.

GRVT

Grvt (pronounced Gravity) is a Perp DEX founded in 2023, built on...zkSync ecosystemIn the middle. It serves as...L3 Validium Application ChainIt runs and inherits Ethereum's security through zero-knowledge proofs.

• Key features:

  • Communication that values privacy

  • It combines a self-hosted Layer-2 (ZK/Validium) settlement layer with off-chain CLOB.

  • ZKsync Atlas enables high-performance attack programs to be compatible with Ethereum's composability.

  • The L3 design allows GRVT to prioritize throughput and latency without sacrificing cryptographic proofs.

     

• Growth indicators:

• TVL: Approximately US$85 million

• Total trading volume: US$2,142.1 billion

• 1.  

     Points program:
     After a considerable period of development, GRVT officially launched its points-based incentive system in 2024, initiating the first phase of its points program to reward users who contribute trading activity, liquidity, and open interest to the platform.

  2. Visit the GRVT trading platform website and register an account (KYC may be required for email-based registration depending on your region).

  3. Deposit funds into the trading account.

  4. Open positions to earn points, with particular emphasis on maintaining open positions, as they have a higher weighting.

  5. By participating in the referral program, you can receive additional fee rebates (rebates are calculated based on the trading platform's net revenue and may vary due to market maker-dealer fee offsets).

Extended (originally X10)

Extended (Formerly known as X10) is a high-performance perpetual DEX built on Starknet by the former Revolut team. The protocol initially focused on perpetual trading but is now expanding towards a unified margin model to support spot trading and integrated lending.

Main features:

• Hybrid architecture: Off-chain CLOBs for matching, risk assessment, and ranking + on-chain settlement

• Cryptocurrencies and traditional financial assets can enjoy leverage of up to 100x.

• Unified margin is achieved through XVS vault shares. This integrates the functions of lending, providing liquidity, and handling clearing.

• The market includes synthetic trading financial assets.

Market performance:

• TVL: $200 million

• 24-hour crime figures: $1.6 billion (Strong; solidifying Starknet's dominance in the criminal network).

• Crime volume in 30 days: $37.8 billion

• Open interest: $280 million (up 45.2% year-to-date)

Points program:

On April 30, 2025, Extended launched its "Points Program," distributing 1.2 million points weekly to traders and liquidity providers (LPs). Users can earn points by trading, referring others, and providing liquidity, with points being distributed every Tuesday at 00:00 UTC.

• Visit the Extended website, connect your wallet, and create an account:

  https://app.extended.exchange/join/MUUR

• Deposit funds into your account and open positions to increase trading volume and accumulate points.

• Providing liquidity to the vault will earn you an additional 20% in points and an annualized return.

• Your referral link will be unlocked once you reach a trading volume of $10,000. You will receive 10% of the referrer's trading commissions and 2.5% of their credits.

Pacifica

PacificaIt is a hybrid perpetual contract decentralized exchange (DEX) based on the Solana platform, currently in closed beta. Despite being in its early stages, it has already attracted considerable trading volume, sometimes even surpassing established Solana DEXs such as Jupiter and Drift, and ranks among the top perpetual contract DEXs in terms of daily trading activity.

Given that previous projects on Solana, such as Drift and Zeta, have delivered decent airdrops, and Pacifica is self-funded, the likelihood of this project delivering a meaningful airdrop is above average.

Main features:

• Hybrid architecture: off-chain CLOB + on-chain settlement/deposits/withdrawals on Solana.

• Market leverage as high as 50 times

• AI Trading Assistant

• You can earn points for cleaning and nursing care.

Market performance:

• TVL: $47 million

• Crime amount in 24 hours: $839.6 million

• 30-day vertical volume: 1.995 billion

• Open interest: $92.8 million

Points program:

Pacifica launched a consecutive trading points rewards program on January 2, 2026, offering up to 23% bonus points. Bonus points increase by 2% daily, reaching 10% after five days. Active trading further boosts rewards, and fee discounts and additional bonuses can reduce the cost per point to approximately $0.15.

• Access the Pacifica website using an invitation code to enter the closed beta version.

• Connect your wallet and deposit funds, then open positions to generate trading volume and accumulate points.

• Join our referral program to receive your exclusive access code.

Reya

ReyaReya is a modular, transaction-optimized L2 trading platform based on a customized Arbitrum Orbit implementation. Instead of operating as a single decentralized exchange (DEX), Reya functions as a foundational execution layer, providing shared liquidity for multiple trading front-ends to build upon.

Reya aims to solve the problem of fragmented liquidity by centralizing liquidity at the network level.

Main features:

• It has transaction-specific zero-knowledge aggregation capabilities.

• By using zero-knowledge proofs, verifiable order execution and settlement are achieved, and transaction settlement is carried out on Ethereum, thereby ensuring strong security.

• rUSD (yield stablecoin) is powered by Reya's unified liquidity framework.

Market performance:

• Crime volume in 30 days: $13.7 billion

• Total amount of crime: US$95.7 billion

• Open interest: $22.5 million

• TVL: $32.4 million

Points program:

Reya Chain Points (RCPs) are an integral system used to track meaningful contributions to ReyaChain. RCPs are converted to [a specific function/mechanism] at TGE.REYA .

The supply of trading, staking, and signaling activities varies slightly each week, especially when trading activity increases. However, trading activity typically offers the highest rewards, with points awarded every Monday at noon GMT.

• Visit the Reya Network website and connect a compatible wallet to deposit or bridge USDC.

• By depositing liquidity into the LP Vault via the "Staking" tab, you can convert rUSD to srUSD, locking your funds to earn loyalty points and an annualized yield of 4.8%.

• Open trading positions to increase trading volume and maximize points.

• Share your referral link and the referrer will receive 10% of the transaction volume generated by the referred user.

Variational

VariationalArbitrum is a peer-to-peer perpetual contract and general derivatives trading protocol built on the Ethereum Layer 2 network. It automates the entire trading cycle from trade to settlement, thereby ensuring secure bilateral trading of options, futures, and perpetual contracts.

Variational operates two main applications: Omni, a leveraged perpetual contract trading platform for retail clients; and Pro, a platform for advanced non-linear derivatives traders.

Main features:

• RFQ (Request for Quotation) peer-to-peer: replacing order books

• Vertically integrated market makers are called full liquidity providers (OLPs).

• Zero cost

• Damages

In 2026, Omni evolved from a testnet into one of the largest payment platforms in the cryptocurrency space, gaining attention for its loss refund feature.

Growth indicators:

• Total transaction volume: US$30 billion

• Weekly trading volume: $11.4 billion

• Open interest: $1.1 billion (Top 5 decentralized trading platforms for perpetual trading)

Points program:

Variational Omni has officially launched its loyalty program and redeemed 3 million points back to existing merchants. Users earn base points based on their activity level, and an additional point for every 10 friends they refer. Points are awarded every Friday at 00:00 UTC, and users can maintain their reward level by remaining active.

• Visit the Variational website.

• Create an account and link your wallet.

• Deposit USDC or other backed assets.

• Earn points by increasing your trading volume; the higher your trading volume, the more points you earn.

• Based on activity on Omni over the past 30 days, reward tiers offer benefits such as increased chances of a refund for lost items, increased referral rate for refunds for lost items, and increased points.

Nado

NadoBuilt on Ink (Kraken's Ethereum L2 Token),CLOB is a decentralized trading platform that integrates spot trading, perpetual contracts, and the money market, employing a unified margin mechanism. Currently, the platform is in its crowdfunding testing phase and is only available to invited users, but anyone can join the waiting list.

Main features:

• Spot and perpetual contracts are now available on the same decentralized trading platform: a unified margin system has been introduced.

• Nado's liquidity provider, NLP, invests idle funds into Nado's order book to earn an annualized yield (APY).

• On the Nado platform, order matching time is 5-15 milliseconds.

Current market performance:

• Crime volume in 30 days: $13.8 billion

• TVL: $52 million

• Open interest: $142.8 million

Points program:

After the closed beta test ends, the platform will open the airdrop mining function.

It is unclear whether Nado will conduct platform-exclusive airdrops, but we can be certain that early adopters will receive INK airdrop points as a reward for their activity, as can be seen from the "Airdrop" tag associated with Nado on the Ink website homepage.

II. Cultivation Strategy: Capital Rate Arbitrage

The perpetual contract market has become the most actively traded financial market in the cryptocurrency space. The weekly open interest (OI) of the perpetual contract market typically exceeds $5 billion to $1 billion and has grown significantly over the past year.

When engaging in cryptocurrency trading activities, it's advisable to use altcoins with lower market capitalizations, as they tend to offer higher reward points compared to assets with higher market capitalizations. However, this approach also carries risks. Lower market capitalization tokens mean higher volatility, and poor position management can easily lead to financial losses.

For less experienced users, or those unwilling to risk active trading for airdrops, funding rate arbitrage is an effective strategy that can increase trading volume while maintaining profitability or at least breaking even.

What is interest rate arbitrage?

Financing rate arbitrage is a form of spot trading in the perpetual futures market.

Funding rate refers to the cost of holding a position. When the funding rate is positive, long positions pay a funding rate to short positions. When the funding rate is negative, short positions pay a funding rate to long positions. In most perpetual trading markets, the funding rate is typically positive.

How this strategy works:

• Open a long position on a trading platform.

• Open a corresponding short position on another trading platform.

• Capture financing rates.

• Continuously increase sales to accumulate points and earn rewards.

In short, the assumption is:

• Bitcoin spot price: $50,000

• BTC perpetual price: $50,100

• Return on investment: +0.01% every 8 hours (positive value)

You need to do the following:

• Go long $10,000 worth of Bitcoin on one decentralized exchange (DEX) and short $10,000 worth of Bitcoin on another decentralized exchange.

• When the price of Bitcoin rises or falls, gains and losses offset each other.

• However, with a funding rate of +0.01%, your short position will be financially supported.

$10,000 × 0.01% = $1 every 8 hours. If the funds are consistently positive: $3 per day, $90 per month.

All of this is unaffected by Bitcoin price fluctuations.

Opening long and short positions simultaneously on different decentralized exchanges (DEXs) rather than on the same platform is intended to avoid detection as a Sybil attack and potential blacklisting. Funding rate arbitrage allows users to mine using Perp DEX without relying on price fluctuations.

This method is effective because it can be profitable even with moderate leverage. Furthermore, traders are less concerned about price fluctuations and can easily generate a stable trading volume to accumulate points.

Key risks to be aware of:

While interest rate arbitrage can reduce risk exposure, it is not foolproof, as some risks are unavoidable, such as the forced liquidation of short positions and interest rates turning negative. Therefore, it is necessary to take the following practical measures to further reduce risk.

• Continuously monitor open positions. Actively manage open positions to avoid forced liquidation.

• Stop-loss (SL) and take-profit (TP) are reliable measures to avoid margin calls, especially for short positions.

• Avoid high leverage.

III. Financing Rate Robots and Tools:

Tracking funding rates requires effort. Skilled airdrop users use bots, but even less experienced users can benefit from these tools. They can visualize the best funding rate arbitrage opportunities across various decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

For example, it will display the annualized rate of return (APR) and the specific actions required to achieve that rate of return (e.g., going long on one trading platform and going short on another).

1. LorisTools A complete dashboard and filters that aggregates funding rates across CEX and DEX platforms, effectively uncovering cross-trading arbitrage opportunities.

2. Arbitraxdexs It is still under development, but it can be used to compare the annualized yield, price difference, and capital differences of tokens on different trading platforms.

3. Cexchange Built-in funding rate arbitrage aggregator, focusing on funding rate strategies between DEX trading pairs.

4. Fundingview This is a tool for finding interest rate arbitrage strategies. It helps traders identify historically profitable arbitrage pairs and calculate the average annual interest rate over multiple time periods.

5. p2p_army Another arbitrage scanning tool with built-in analysis tools can identify funding rate differences between different trading platforms. It also provides real-time scanning of funding rate differences, historical rate tables, and s.

6. dextrabot As an automated platform, it focuses on acquiring airdrop points and copy trading on perpetual DEXs such as Lighter, Aster, Hyperliquid, Extended, and Variational, emphasizing low-cost strategies such as delta-neutral bots and grid trading.

in conclusion

2025 was undoubtedly a pivotal year for Perp traders and trading platforms. From the successful airdrop to the market crash of October 10-11 (the largest single market crash in cryptocurrency history), the automatic deleveraging (ADL) cycle was triggered, resulting in huge losses even for traders employing funding rate arbitrage strategies.

However, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are still thriving, but traders should exercise greater caution this time. The key is that the trading platform is just as important as the trading instruments. Always carefully read the documentation of new trading platforms to avoid falling into the trap of predatory platforms.

This article will provide you with the tools you need to start your Perp DEX monster-hunting journey, and afterwards, experience and self-discipline will be your guiding lights.

Critics often point out that most emerging protocols are trying to be "the next Hyperliquid." Personally, I don't think that's a problem. The competition between Perp DEXs doesn't come from each other, but from their centralized trading platforms. Opportunities still exist as Perp DEXs continue to develop, but they will only become increasingly scarce over time.

Remember, the biggest regret in the cryptocurrency space is that trends disappear.

Source: https://stacymuur.substack.com/p/ultimate-guide-to-perp-dex-airdrops