Onchain Perps Drove Crypto Derivatives Growth in 2025

Crypto derivatives activity picked up sharply in 2025 as traders increasingly turned to onchain perpetual futures, according to Coinbase researcher David Duong. By late in the year, decentralized exchanges were processing more than $1 trillion in monthly perpetual futures volume, underscoring the growing role of onchain derivatives markets.

In a post published Monday on X, Duong said the trend was driven in part by the absence of a traditional altcoin season, which led traders to seek higher returns through leverage rather than spot markets. He added that the “unprecedented degree of leverage” available in perpetual futures allowed traders to amplify exposure with relatively small amounts of capital.

Duong noted that the surge in activity has been driven mainly by decentralized trading platforms, with onchain venues such as Aster and Hyperliquid accounting for much of the volume.

Perpetual futures, or perps, are crypto derivatives that let traders gain leveraged exposure to price movements without an expiration date.

According to Duong, equity perpetual futures could emerge as a next area of growth, as tokenized stock derivatives may combine crypto’s 24/7 access and leverage with demand for exposure to major US equities outside traditional market hours.

“Nevertheless, we think perpetual futures are evolving beyond isolated, high-leverage trading vehicles and are becoming core, composable primitives within DeFi markets,” he said.

Competition intensifies among onchain perpetual futures platforms

Hyperliquid launched its onchain perpetual futures platform in late 2023 and gained broader traction in 2024 after it added spot trading. In July, the platform posted a record volume, with data from DeFiLlama showing the exchange processed about $319 billion in trades over the month.

Competition in the crypto perpetual futures market has intensified over the past year. In September, shortly after its token generation event and launch, Aster briefly topped decentralized perpetual futures rankings with nearly $36 billion in 24-hour trading volume, accounting for more than half of total perp DEX activity. 

In November, Lighter, an onchain perpetual futures exchange founded by tech entrepreneur Vladimir Novakovski in 2022, raised $68 million in a funding round following the launch of its public mainnet.

Over the past 30 days, data from DeFiLlama shows onchain perpetual futures generated about $972 billion in trading volume. During the same period, Lighter led trading with about $203 billion in volume, followed by Aster at roughly $171.8 billion and Hyperliquid with about $160.6 billion.

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