Dissecting Derivatives Data

Key Insights

• dYdX, with $83.8 billion in volumes in the last 120 days, currently stands as the market share leader of perp DEXs. Synthetix sits second with $14.6 billion, followed by Kwenta with $12.7 billion.
• 90% of GMX users have only used GMX, supplanting it as the stickiest and most popular Arbitrum DEX, with 46% of all Arbitrum perp DEX users finding GMX as their first exchange.
• Drift and Jupiter continue to jockey for Solana perps DEX market share, with Jupiter ($40 million daily volumes) surpassing Drift ($25 million) despite only launching last month.
  

Perpetual futures are arguably crypto’s stickiest innovation. Perp DEXs are the most capital-efficient instruments in crypto and generate the most revenue by market cap. Currently, these platforms manage over $2 billion in daily trading volumes, and their ratios compared to spot trading recently hit all-time highs. There's a strong potential for trading volumes to surge even higher in a bull market, considering that peak levels in the 2021 bull saw daily volumes between $6-8 billion. In addition to this growing momentum, protocols such as Drift and Jupiter are preparing for their token launches, indicating a potential phase of significant expansion of market activity.