Perp DEX trading freezes as volumes slide for five straight months
After reaching a peak in October 2025, onchain sustainable futures trading has slowed for five consecutive months.
Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) fell from $1.36 trillion in October to $699 billion in March 2026, according to Defillama data.
In the year The rate is expected to decline through November and December before the loss extends into the first quarter of 2026, during which the decline is stable.
Daily activities also show signs of weakness. On April 4, the PerP DX volume fell to $8.4 billion, the first time since September 6, 2025 that it fell below $10 billion. This also marks the lowest level since July 5, 2025, according to Defillama.
The trend indicates a continued cooling in onchain perpetual futures trading followed by a 2025 surge. Perp volumes serve as a proxy for speculative demand and leveraged positions in crypto markets.
A higher discharge in the last 30 days leads to higher DEX levels.
Data from Defilama shows that trading activity remains concentrated among the top DEX platforms. Over the past 30 days, HyperLiquid accounted for $185.5 billion in reported volume, accounting for 34 percent of the total volume among the top 10 DEXs.
This puts the platform well ahead of rivals EdgeX, which reported $73 billion, and Aster, which reported $68 billion.
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Other platforms recorded lower amounts at the same time, with Liter at around $50 billion and Girvit at around $40 billion. Smaller positions such as ApeX Protocol, Variational, and StandX each recorded roughly $16 billion to $33 billion in 30-day volume.
The data shows that a large share of the onchain future activity is focused on advanced platforms, as the total volumes decrease from the end of 2025.
A decrease in perp DEX is followed by a rapid increase
The slowdown follows rapid growth in on-chain derivatives trading. In the year By 2025, the total volume of paper DEXs will nearly triple to $12.09 trillion, with $7.9 trillion, or about 65%, generated in 2025 alone.
This was largely driven by monthly activity averaging nearly $1 trillion in the fourth quarter.
Futures exchanges are becoming a key battleground in the crypto ecosystem. Blockchains have been racing to launch or host perpetual DEXs to capture trading activity, although liquidity has historically tended to be concentrated around a small number of major platforms.
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