Perp DEX Weekly: The Fee Race to Zero, a Rebrand, and Who Leads Now
Welcome to the first Perp Desk weekly. Each week we look at where perpetual DEX volume actually sits and what changed underneath it. Figures here are compiled from public data on our live rankings and can lag, so treat them as a directional read and verify on each venue before trading.
The lead has not moved. By our tracking, Hyperliquid still holds roughly a quarter of combined perp DEX volume, ahead of a tight chasing pack. Behind it, Aster, edgeX and Lighter trade places week to week rather than pulling clearly ahead of one another, so the interesting story this week is not the ranking, it is the fees.
Fees are racing toward zero. Lighter now charges standard accounts nothing at all, zero maker and zero taker, and makes its money from opt-in premium and market-maker tiers instead. Aster zeroed maker fees earlier in the year and charges only a small taker fee on its main perps. When two top-five venues make trading effectively free, everyone charging a headline fee has to justify it on liquidity and execution.
Not every venue is chasing zero. GMX trimmed its schedule to roughly 4 and 6 basis points on the balance-improving and balance-worsening sides of its pool, a small cut that keeps its skew-based model intact. You can see how the whole field compares on the lowest-fee perp DEX ranking.
One name changed entirely. Drift has relaunched as Velocity following an incident earlier in the year, and its product and documentation moved with the new brand. If you traded it as Drift, it is worth confirming the current name and status before you send size.
Pre-token farming is still a live theme. A cluster of high open-interest venues have no token yet, which keeps airdrop-farming interest elevated even as fees fall. We track which ones are still pre-token on the no-token watch, and it remains one of the most-read pages on the site.
Real-world-asset perps keep carving out their own lane. Ondo, Ostium and Arcus are pushing tokenized stocks, commodities and indices onchain, a different audience from the crypto-only order books that dominate the top of the table. It is a slower-growing corner, but a persistent one.
What we are watching next week: whether the zero-fee push actually pulls volume away from fee-charging venues, and where open interest concentrates as it does. We will put the fresh numbers up in the next recap. For the current picture, the live rankings and the top 10 by volume update continuously.
None of this is financial advice. Perpetual futures are high risk and leverage can liquidate your position. Verify every number on the venue itself before acting on it.