As of the end of December 2025, the perpetual DEX market had formed a dominant structure led by Hyperliquid's CLOB (Central Limit Order Book) model, holding approximately 70-75% market share. The AMM model, on the other hand, has largely retreated to long-tail assets and retail-friendly markets.
We once thought GMX was the final game, but now we realize it was just a transition. Why has on-chain trading ultimately reverted to the experience of a "centralized exchange"? Let's briefly discuss the underlying logic and my observations from @StandX_Official.
First, let's explain the difference between the AMM and CLOB models in one sentence:
AMM Model: You are betting against the pool (smart contract). The price is determined by a mathematical formula or oracle, and execution can be completed instantly without a "counterpartie."
CLOB Model: You are betting against other traders or market makers. The price is determined by the buy and sell orders; a trade can only be executed if someone accepts the order.
Why does CLOB dominate the market? The main reason lies in pricing power. AMMs are forever just shadows of CEXs, relying on oracles to manipulate Binance's prices. CLOBs, on the other hand, allow market makers to place orders and speculate, generating independent prices during major market movements. For institutions and professional traders, trading on a platform without pricing power is tantamount to handing their necks to oracle attackers.
For quantitative traders and market makers, AMMs have extremely low capital efficiency—LPs' money must be locked 1:1 in the pool. CLOBs, however, offer extremely high capital turnover. This is why we experience silky-smooth depth and extremely narrow spreads on Hyperliquid. "Let professionals do what they do best"—this is the fundamental reason for CLOB's success.
Is CLOB perfect now? Not yet. While Hyperliquid solves the "trading experience" problem, if you don't trade, your USDT is just dead money sitting in your account. In traditional CLOBs, margin must remain idle to prevent liquidation, not only generating no returns but also bearing the erosion of inflation. This is the problem that the next generation of Perp DEX aims to solve: ultimate capital efficiency.
StandX's design philosophy was born for this purpose: not only to be a high-performance CLOB, but also to provide "yield-generating margin." Their core DUSD is essentially a Delta-neutral, yield-generating stablecoin similar to Ethena. However, in StandX, you don't need to deposit your money into an investment account; your trading margin itself earns interest.
If GMX represents DeFi 1.0 (solving the question of whether it's playable), and Hyperliquid represents DeFi 2.0 (solving the question of whether it's fun), then StandX may be pointing towards DeFi 3.0: a fusion of trading and yield. It aims to earn not only money from trading but also from the time value of money.
