From "On-Chain Applications" to "Financial Foundation": The Generational Development and Evolution of Perp DEX

Author: Max.s

The year 2025 was often regarded as a "great selection period" for the derivatives industry. When we stand before the current power landscape of Perp DEX, we can clearly see that the vast majority of once-glorious fork projects have fallen silent, while the survivors are reshaping the financial order in a completely new way.

Perp DEX's survival strategy doesn't stem from being faster or cheaper than centralized exchanges (CEXs), but rather from solving the most fundamental cost in the financial system—trust. After several liquidation black box crises involving second-tier exchanges (the Double Ten crash, which was a painful blow to all market makers!), the market has reached a consensus: transparency is not an option, but the underlying logic of the infrastructure.

Early Perp DEXs were often seen as a "lower-spec" version of CEXs, but with the widespread adoption of chain abstraction technology, users in 2026 could seamlessly cross chains. User assets no longer need to be held in custody by intermediaries, but rather locked in smart contracts. This return to "asset sovereignty" is the foundation upon which Perp DEXs are qualified to take a share of the CEX market.

Currently, on-chain derivatives trading volume has consistently accounted for over 25% of the total network volume. This is not merely a numerical increase, but a shift in user behavior patterns. With clearing logic, funding rates, and order matching all recorded on an immutable ledger, Perp DEX has evolved from an experimental DApp into a necessity for the crypto market.

The demise of most Perp DEXs: mediocrity is the original sin. Behind the prosperity lies an extremely brutal elimination process. In the past two years, more than 90% of Perp DEXs have gone silent. The causes of death for these losers are highly consistent: product homogenization, reliance on liquidity subsidies, and lack of technological depth.

Amid the "Points" wave, numerous projects attracted users through inflated liquidity mining. However, once the points were redeemed and airdrops were delivered, these platforms fell into a death spiral of "liquidity zeroing out." This model, reliant on rented liquidity, will gradually disappear from the professional market starting in 2026.

Another reason for the collapse of DEXs is the skyrocketing cost of customer acquisition. Without an independent ecosystem, simply modifying a UI or forking GMX code is no longer enough to survive in this highly competitive market. Projects without a core order matching engine or strong ecosystem backing are essentially just expensive liquidity pools, not true exchanges.

The four existing dex models are worth learning from and referencing:

Hyperliquid Model: Vertically Integrated Technological Hegemony

Hyperliquid stands as an indispensable monument in the list of all DEX survivors. It proves that if a general-purpose public blockchain cannot support high-frequency trading, the best solution is to build your own blockchain.

Hyperliquid attracts significant quantitative funding because it addresses order book latency issues through L1 layer optimization. Instead of relying on Arbitrum or other Layer 2 blockchains, it has built a consensus mechanism specifically designed for derivatives. This "vertical integration" gives it near-CEX matching performance while maintaining on-chain transparency.

More importantly, Hyperliquid has successfully built a "quantitatively friendly" ecosystem. When third-party market makers discover that the API latency is extremely low and slippage is controllable, intrinsic liquidity begins to grow organically. This "performance barrier" built on strong technological capabilities allows it to easily compete with general-purpose DEXs that lack distinctive features.

Aster Model: Ecosystem Premium and Asset Management

If Hyperliquid relies on its core technology, then Aster and the Binance ecosystem behind it represent a different survival logic: extreme resource efficiency and asset gains—that is, aligning with a powerful partner.

Aster is more than just a trading platform; it's a "leveraged layer for interest-bearing assets." Through deep integration with the Binance ecosystem, it introduces collateral such as asBNB or USDF, allowing users to earn staking or re-staking rewards while holding assets. This optimization of capital efficiency is difficult for standalone DEXs to achieve.

For high-net-worth users, funding costs are a core consideration. When a user opens a position on Aster, their margin continues to generate annualized returns. This logic of "monetizing liquidity" makes Aster a highly engaging financial gateway, rather than simply a speculative tool.

Lighter Pattern: ZK-driven verifiable financial infrastructure

The Lighter model represents the pinnacle of "financial infrastructure." It does not aim to become a traffic portal, but rather provides institutions with a mathematically deterministic underlying transaction mechanism by building its own application-specific ZK-rollup.

Lighter's uniqueness lies in its solution to the problem of "mathematical honesty." It integrates order matching and settlement logic into a "ZK circuit." This means that the matching and settlement of each transaction no longer depends on the "reputation" of nodes, but rather on verifiable mathematical proofs. This is extremely attractive to institutional investors who dislike "black-box settlement."

Furthermore, Lighter's ZK-Orderbook design inherently possesses MEV-resistant properties, protecting the strategy privacy of high-frequency traders. This combination of "verifiability + privacy protection + extremely low latency" makes it the standard interface for linking real-world assets (RWA) with on-chain derivatives, building an extremely high level of compliance and technological moat.

The Decibel Model: A Balance Between Ultimate Performance and Full-Chain Composability

In the 2026 market, Decibel represents the third model of the evolution of the next generation of Perp DEXs: a Lego-like combination of "high-performance engine" and "composability". As a full-chain transaction engine that has risen on the Aptos ecosystem, Decibel has completely ended the fate of "speed and decentralization being mutually exclusive".

Decibel's core competitive advantage lies in its deeply optimized Trading Virtual Machine (VM). Leveraging Aptos' Block-STM parallel execution architecture, it is moving towards sub-20 ms block times and a processing capacity of over 1 million orders per second. This makes on-chain order matching no longer an "illusion," but a reality that truly allows it to compete with top-tier centralized exchanges.

Unlike traditional isolated DEXs, Decibel offers a highly programmable financial platform. It unifies spot trading, perpetual contracts, margin, and vaults. This "full-stack" design means users can collateralize multiple assets such as APT, USDC, BTC, and ETH simultaneously using a single cross-chain margin account, greatly enhancing capital efficiency.

Decibel's "X-Chain Accounts" technology breaks down inter-chain barriers. Users can directly deposit funds using Ethereum or Solana wallets (such as MetaMask or Phantom) without configuring complex cross-chain bridges. This "seamless access" capability, combined with 100% on-chain matching logic, makes Decibel a potential favorite among on-chain high-frequency traders and institutions in 2026.

New directions after 2026: Intent, AI, and dynamic pricing

From the perspective of industry practitioners, the future evolution of Perp DEX will focus on the following three dimensions:

An intent-centric trading experience. Future users will no longer need to manually adjust funding rates or slippage; instead, they will express an intent. The system will then use a solver to find the optimal execution path across the entire chain. This model will significantly lower the barrier to entry for retail investors into complex derivatives.

The explosion of AI agents. As on-chain automation tools mature, DEXs will integrate AI strategy engines. A significant portion of future trading volume will be driven by AI. This means DEXs need to provide more powerful computing capabilities and lower data latency to handle the high-frequency games played by bots.

The evolution of pricing models. Current AMMs or simple order books remain vulnerable under extreme market conditions. We are seeing more projects introducing complex dynamic risk engines, using more scientific formulas:

Real-time adjustment of system parameters. This automated adjustment based on real-time volatility and position deviation will make Perp DEX's system robustness truly surpass that of traditional centralized institutions.

The second half of the Perp DEX era is a survival race about "efficiency." Those projects that tried to survive through mediocre subsidies have long since vanished. Future winners will either possess impeccable underlying technology like Hyperliquid, irreplaceable ecosystem resources like Aster, or find the perfect balance between performance limits and full-chain composability like Decibel.

In this field, there is only one reason to survive: whether you provide an execution efficiency that capital and strategy cannot refuse.

For high-net-worth users, funding costs are a core consideration. When a user opens a position on Aster, their margin continues to generate annualized returns. This logic of "monetizing liquidity" makes Aster a highly engaging financial gateway, rather than simply a speculative tool.

Lighter Pattern: ZK-driven verifiable financial infrastructure

The Lighter model represents the pinnacle of "financial infrastructure." It does not aim to become a traffic portal, but rather provides institutions with a mathematically deterministic underlying transaction mechanism by building its own application-specific ZK-rollup.

Lighter's uniqueness lies in its solution to the problem of "mathematical honesty." It integrates order matching and settlement logic into a "ZK circuit." This means that the matching and settlement of each transaction no longer depends on the "reputation" of nodes, but rather on verifiable mathematical proofs. This is extremely attractive to institutional investors who dislike "black-box settlement."

Furthermore, Lighter's ZK-Orderbook design inherently possesses MEV-resistant properties, protecting the strategy privacy of high-frequency traders. This combination of "verifiability + privacy protection + extremely low latency" makes it the standard interface for linking real-world assets (RWA) with on-chain derivatives, building an extremely high level of compliance and technological moat.

The Decibel Model: A Balance Between Ultimate Performance and Full-Chain Composability

In the 2026 market, Decibel represents the third model of the evolution of the next generation of Perp DEXs: a Lego-like combination of "high-performance engine" and "composability". As a full-chain transaction engine that has risen on the Aptos ecosystem, Decibel has completely ended the fate of "speed and decentralization being mutually exclusive".

Decibel's core competitive advantage lies in its deeply optimized Trading Virtual Machine (VM). Leveraging Aptos' Block-STM parallel execution architecture, it is moving towards sub-20 ms block times and a processing capacity of over 1 million orders per second. This makes on-chain order matching no longer an "illusion," but a reality that truly allows it to compete with top-tier centralized exchanges.

Unlike traditional isolated DEXs, Decibel offers a highly programmable financial platform. It unifies spot trading, perpetual contracts, margin, and vaults. This "full-stack" design means users can collateralize multiple assets such as APT, USDC, BTC, and ETH simultaneously using a single cross-chain margin account, greatly enhancing capital efficiency.

Decibel's "X-Chain Accounts" technology breaks down inter-chain barriers. Users can directly deposit funds using Ethereum or Solana wallets (such as MetaMask or Phantom) without configuring complex cross-chain bridges. This "seamless access" capability, combined with 100% on-chain matching logic, makes Decibel a potential favorite among on-chain high-frequency traders and institutions in 2026.

New directions after 2026: Intent, AI, and dynamic pricing

From the perspective of industry practitioners, the future evolution of Perp DEX will focus on the following three dimensions:

An intent-centric trading experience. Future users will no longer need to manually adjust funding rates or slippage; instead, they will express an intent. The system will then use a solver to find the optimal execution path across the entire chain. This model will significantly lower the barrier to entry for retail investors into complex derivatives.

The explosion of AI agents. As on-chain automation tools mature, DEXs will integrate AI strategy engines. A significant portion of future trading volume will be driven by AI. This means DEXs need to provide more powerful computing capabilities and lower data latency to handle the high-frequency games played by bots.

The evolution of pricing models. Current AMMs or simple order books remain vulnerable under extreme market conditions. We are seeing more projects introducing complex dynamic risk engines, using more scientific formulas:

Real-time adjustment of system parameters. This automated adjustment based on real-time volatility and position deviation will make Perp DEX's system robustness truly surpass that of traditional centralized institutions.

The second half of the Perp DEX era is a survival race about "efficiency." Those projects that tried to survive through mediocre subsidies have long since vanished. Future winners will either possess impeccable underlying technology like Hyperliquid, irreplaceable ecosystem resources like Aster, or find the perfect balance between performance limits and full-chain composability like Decibel.

In this field, there is only one reason to survive: whether you provide an execution efficiency that capital and strategy cannot refuse.