Surge of 346% vs decline of 20.8%, CoinGecko: DEX perpetual contracts are taking market share from CEX.

Compiler: Deep Tide TechFlow

Abstract: The core data from the CoinGecko annual report is sufficient to illustrate the problem: the annual trading volume of DEX perpetual contracts has skyrocketed by 346% compared to the previous year, while CEX open interest has decreased by 20.8%, indicating a systematic migration of capital from centralized to decentralized platforms.

This article is not just a pile of numbers; it clearly explains why this migration occurs, how Hyperliquid stands out against Coinbase International, and what these platforms are becoming after HIP-3.

The full text is as follows:

In 2025, perpetual contract exchanges—especially decentralized platforms—experienced a surge, with total trading volume reaching $92.9 trillion (an increase of 64.6% year-on-year), fundamentally shifting the cryptocurrency market from spot trading to a derivatives-led price discovery mechanism.

Key points:

DEX perpetuals grew by 346%, reaching $6.7 trillion; meanwhile, CEX open interest decreased by 20.8%. This represents a massive capital migration from centralized to decentralized infrastructure, driven by platforms like Hyperliquid (ranked seventh globally, with a trading volume of $2.9 trillion).
Capital efficiency has driven adoption: Perpetual contracts allow traders to gain exposure with less capital through leverage, enabling bidirectional profit-taking (which was crucial during the downturn in Q4 2025), while avoiding the friction of physical settlement.
HIP-3 has achieved permissionless listings for any assets with price source, transforming platforms like Hyperliquid from "crypto exchanges" into 24/7 global financial infrastructure capable of trading everything from commodities to Pre-IPO equities.

Why the growth of Perpetuals outpaces spot trading

Figure: As of March 2, 2026, the top 5 decentralized perpetual contract exchanges ranked by 24-hour trading volume on CoinGecko

Capital efficiency: Doing more with less money

The fundamental advantage of perpetual contracts lies in capital efficiency. In the spot market, purchasing $10,000 worth of Bitcoin requires $10,000 in capital kept locked during the holding period. In the perpetual market, exposure can be gained with only a small fraction of the capital through leverage, freeing up liquidity for other positions or strategies.

In addition to speculation, perpetual contracts also allow market participants to:

Hedge existing positions without selling the underlying asset (thus triggering tax events); arbitrage price differences across venues; express directional views without the friction of physical settlement; deploy funds across multiple opportunities simultaneously.

Every dollar in the perpetual market has a larger effect than a dollar in the spot market. For traders, funds, and institutions optimizing capital returns, the scales are shifting towards perpetuals.

Market maturation: Following the path of traditional finance

The explosive growth of crypto derivatives mirrors the patterns experienced by every mature financial market. In traditional finance, the size of the derivatives market far exceeds that of the underlying spot market, often reaching 10 to 50 times. For example, the nominal value of the interest rate swap market exceeds $400 trillion, while the global bond market is around $130 trillion.

The crypto market is simply catching up. As the market matures and more experienced participants enter, the ratio of derivatives to spot trading volume continues to expand. The top ten exchanges alone generated $92.9 trillion in perpetual contract trading volume, far exceeding the total spot trading volume of all crypto exchanges.

Hedging factors: Maintaining resilience during downturns

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of the value proposition of perpetual contracts appeared during the downturn in Q4 2025. While the spot market contracted and investor sentiment worsened, the trading volume of the top ten perpetual contract exchanges grew by 64.6% year-on-year.

What is the reason? Because perpetual contracts allow traders to profit in both directions. When prices fall, short positions profit significantly, and hedging activity intensifies. The ability to express bearish views keeps funds active, maintaining high trading volumes even when spot buying collapses.

In a traditional pure spot market, falling prices mean reduced activity. This is evident from the decline in CEX spot trading volume from $2.21 trillion in January 2025 to a low of $0.95 trillion in December.

However, in the perpetual market, any directional volatility means opportunities. Data from 2025 proves that this dynamic has fundamentally changed the structure of the crypto market.

Figure: Comparison of CEX and DEX spot and perpetual contract trading volumes

The Great Migration: DEX vs CEX

Figure: Top 10 Perpetual CEX and Perpetual DEX trading volumes

Source: CoinGecko 2025 Crypto Industry Report

Although centralized exchanges still dominate in absolute terms, the true story of 2025 is the rapid rise of decentralized perpetual contract exchanges. Perpetual DEX trading volume surged by 346%, reaching a record $6.7 trillion for the year.

To grasp the scale of this leap: just in October 2025, during the peak month, Perpetual DEX handled $1.18 trillion in trading volume, over four times that of January 2025.

The Breakthrough of DEX

By 2025, Perpetual DEX had resolved the fundamental usability issues that had previously kept users on centralized platforms:

User experience parity: The notion that "DEXs are clunky" ended in 2025. Hyperliquid and Lighter provided interfaces that are nearly indistinguishable from Binance or Coinbase. The order book depth is sufficient, and transactions occur almost instantly, making it hard for ordinary traders to feel they are using a decentralized platform.
Competitive fee structures: Early DEXs charged a premium for decentralization. By 2025, competition and technological advancements drove Perpetual DEX fees down to be on par or even lower than those of CEXs. Platforms like Hyperliquid even began offering up to 90% taker rebates, rivaling the most competitive CEX fee structures.
Scalable performance: Early blockchain-based DEXs could not handle the volume required for serious derivatives trading. The emergence of dedicated Layer 1 chains and optimized rollups addressed this issue. For instance, Hyperliquid's custom L1 can process thousands of transactions per second, with confirmation times under one second—performance comparable to centralized infrastructure.

Divergence in Open Interest

According to CoinGecko's "2025 Crypto Industry Annual Report," CEX open interest declined by 20.8% in 2025, while DEX open interest surged by 229.6%.

Open interest—the total value of open derivatives contracts—represents committed capital and conviction. This divergence tells us that traders are not just "testing" DEX for quick trades; they are building substantial long-term positions on-chain.

This shift represents a reallocation of funds from centralized to decentralized infrastructure. Once this migration begins, network effects accelerate it. More liquidity attracts more traders, which in turn attracts more market makers, further deepening liquidity.

The Rise of Hyperliquid and Lighter

The rankings of perpetual contract exchanges in 2025 reveal significant changes in market structure. Two decentralized platforms made strong entries into the top ten, displacing established centralized players:

@HyperliquidX: Ranked seventh globally, with an annual trading volume of $2.9 trillion;
@Lighter_xyz: Ranked tenth globally, with an annual trading volume of $1.3 trillion.

In 2025, Hyperliquid's trading volume surpassed that of Coinbase International. This decentralized platform, established for less than two years, outperformed a listed exchange supported by billions in capital and years of operational history.

In 2025, Coinbase International processed about $1.4 trillion. Hyperliquid reached $2.9 trillion—more than double that of the former.

Infrastructure Wins

The secret to Hyperliquid's success is not clever marketing or token incentives but infrastructure. The platform has built a proprietary Layer 1 blockchain optimized for perpetual contract trading (HyperCore).

This architectural decision completely dispels the notion that "DEXs are slow." By controlling the complete tech stack from consensus mechanisms to matching engines, Hyperliquid has achieved: transaction confirmations in under one second; zero gas fees for market makers; over 20,000 orders processed per second; and 100% online availability throughout 2025.

In contrast, Ethereum-based DEXs suffer from network congestion and variable gas costs, while other L2 solutions rely on external infrastructure. Hyperliquid's vertical integration provides a user experience indistinguishable from centralized exchanges while retaining complete decentralized security assurances.

Lighter has followed a similar path, although with different technical implementations. The conclusion is clear: to compete with centralized exchanges, DEXs must control their infrastructure destiny.

Beyond Crypto: The HIP-3 Revolution of Hyperliquid

At the end of 2025, Hyperliquid implemented HIP-3 (Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal 3), fundamentally changing its market structure.

Permissionless Listings

Previously, launching new perpetual markets required validator approval—a semi-decentralized process. HIP-3 introduced a permissionless deployment mechanism for perpetual markets.

Any builder can now create perpetual markets for any assets with reliable price sources. No tokens, no approval, no listing fees.

The immediate impact is explosive. Within weeks, perpetual markets for assets that had never before traded on-chain emerged on the platform.

A Bridge to Traditional Finance

By February 2026, the impact of HIP-3 had become increasingly clear. Platforms like Hyperliquid are no longer just "crypto derivatives exchanges," but are evolving into global financial market infrastructure.

Currently, the perpetual markets on Hyperliquid encompass:

Commodities: perpetual contracts for gold and silver tracking COMEX futures; crude oil and natural gas; agricultural products (wheat, corn, soybeans).
Equities: Pre-IPO companies like SpaceX and OpenAI; synthetic exposure to major tech stocks; index perpetual contracts (S&P 500, Nasdaq 100).
Alternative assets: prediction markets (election outcomes, economic indicators); sports betting derivatives; weather derivatives.

This expansion signifies that Perp DEX is becoming the infrastructure for 24/7 global price discovery.

Markets That Never Close

Traditional financial markets close— the New York Stock Exchange shuts down at 4 PM EST, and the CME futures market stops trading on Sunday evenings. This causes friction, information gaps, and opportunity costs.

In contrast, blockchain-based perpetual markets never close. While traditional markets are offline, on-chain markets continue to operate, integrating new information in real-time.

Imagine this: significant news breaks on a Sunday evening—a geopolitical crisis, corporate bankruptcy, an unexpected central bank move. Traditional markets can only price in this information by Monday morning, leading to potential gaps and misalignments.

Perpetual contracts on platforms like Hyperliquid will immediately price in the information. As liquidity in these markets deepens, they may begin to influence the opening prices of traditional markets—on-chain 24/7 prices are becoming a reference point for traditional markets to catch up with on Monday mornings.

Conclusion: The New Frontier of Perpetual Contracts

Data from 2025 tells a clear story: perpetual contracts have become the dominant force in crypto trading, with decentralized platforms rapidly closing the gap with their centralized counterparts.

Numbers speak for themselves: the top ten perpetual contract exchanges have a trading volume of $92.9 trillion; DEX perpetual trading has grown by 346%; DEX open interest has surged by 229.6%; leading DEXs have replaced major CEXs in rankings.

With permissionless market creation becoming possible, the blockchain infrastructure achieves performance parity with centralized systems, blurring the lines between "crypto exchanges" and "global financial markets." These platforms are moving towards "on-chain financial markets"—any asset with a price source can be traded 24/7, fully self-custodied, and with transparent settlement.

The spot trading model—buying and physically settling assets—will continue to exist. However, in terms of price discovery, hedging, and capital-efficient speculation, perpetual contracts will dominate.

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