Editor's Note: The decentralized perpetual contract trading (Perp DEX) sector has undergone dramatic changes over the past year: from Hyperliquid's absolute dominance to the rise of Aster, Lighter, and EdgeX, the market landscape is being reshaped.

This article deeply analyzes four platforms from the perspectives of technical architecture, core metrics, risk events, and long-term feasibility, aiming to help readers see the "truth behind the data" rather than making judgments based solely on trading volume rankings.

The following is the original text:

In 2025, the decentralized perpetual contract (perp DEX) market experienced explosive growth. In October 2025, the monthly trading volume of perpetual contract DEXs exceeded $120 billion for the first time, quickly attracting the attention of retail traders, institutional investors, and venture capital funds.

Over the past year, Hyperliquid almost dominated the market, reaching its peak in May this year, accounting for 71% of on-chain perpetual contract trading volume. However, by November, its market share had dropped to just 20%, as new competitors are rapidly taking over:

- Lighter: 27.7%

- Aster: 19.3%

- EdgeX: 14.6%

In this fast-developing ecosystem, four leading players have emerged, competing fiercely for industry supremacy:

@HyperliquidX——The seasoned king of on-chain perpetual contracts

@Aster_DEX——The "rocket" with massive trading volume but controversial

@Lighter_xyz——The disruptor with zero fees and native zk

@edgeX_exchange——The underdog with deep institutional alignment

This in-depth investigation aims to clear the fog, analyzing the technical strength, core metrics, controversy, and long-term feasibility of each platform.

Part I: Hyperliquid, the undisputed king

Why can Hyperliquid dominate?

Hyperliquid has established itself as a leading decentralized perpetual contract trading platform, with a market share of over 71% at its peak. Although competitors once captured headlines with explosive trading volume growth, Hyperliquid remains the structural pillar of the entire perpetual contract DEX ecosystem.

Technical foundation

Hyperliquid's advantage stems from a revolutionary architectural decision: building a custom Layer 1 blockchain specifically designed for derivative trading. Its HyperBFT consensus mechanism achieves sub-second order confirmation and supports 200,000 transactions per second, matching or even surpassing centralized exchanges in performance.

The truth about open interest

Competitors often attract attention with their impressive 24-hour trading volumes, but the indicator that truly reveals the deployment of funds is the open interest (OI), which is the total value of all ongoing perpetual contracts.

Trading volume indicates activity, while open interest indicates committed funds.

According to 21Shares data, in September 2025: Aster accounted for approximately 70% of total trading volume; Hyperliquid dropped to around 10%

This was only an advantage in terms of trading volume, but trading volume is the most easily manipulated metric through incentives, rebates, market makers' frequent trading, or even "fake volume" activities.

The latest 24-hour open interest data shows:

-Hyperliquid: $8.014B

-Aster: $2.329B

-Lighter: $1.591B

-edgeX: $780.41M

Total OI of the top four platforms: $12.714B
Hyperliquid's share: approximately 63%

This means that Hyperliquid holds nearly two-thirds of the total market's open interest, exceeding the combined total of Aster, Lighter, and edgeX.

Open Interest Market Share (24 hours)

-Hyperliquid: 63.0%

-Aster: 18.3%

-Lighter: 12.5%

-edgeX: 6.1%

This indicator reflects the willingness of traders to retain funds overnight, not just for incentives or frequent trading.

Hyperliquid: High OI/trading volume ratio (approximately 0.64), indicating a large amount of trading flow converted into sustained positions.

Aster & Lighter: Low ratio (approximately 0.18 and 0.12), indicating frequent trading but little retained funds, typical of incentive-driven behavior, not stable liquidity.

Full picture

Trading Volume (24h): Indicates short-term activity

Open Interest (24h): Indicates risk funds retained

OI/Trading Volume Ratio (24h): Reveals real trading vs incentive-driven trading

From all OI-related indicators, Hyperliquid is the structural leader: highest open interest; largest share of committed funds; strongest OI/trading volume ratio; total OI exceeds the sum of the next three platforms

Trading volume rankings fluctuate, but open interest reveals the true market leader, and that leader is Hyperliquid.

Practical verification

In the liquidation event in October 2025, $19 billion in positions were liquidated, and Hyperliquid maintained zero downtime when handling large transaction peaks.

Institutional recognition

21Shares has submitted an application for Hyperliquid (HYPE) product to the U.S. SEC, and listed a regulated HYPE ETP on the Swiss stock exchange platform. These developments (including reports on platforms like CoinMarketCap) indicate increasing institutional access to HYPE. The HyperEVM ecosystem is also expanding, although public data has not yet verified the exact claims of "180+ projects" or "$4.1B TVL".

Conclusion

Based on current filings, exchange listings, and ecosystem growth, Hyperliquid shows strong momentum and growing institutional recognition, further solidifying its position as a leading DeFi derivatives platform.

Part II: Aster, Explosive Growth and Scandals Coexist

Aster's Positioning

Aster is a multi-chain perpetual contract trading platform that launched in early 2025, with a clear goal: to provide high-speed, high-leverage derivative trading on networks such as BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Ethereum, and Solana, without requiring cross-chain asset transfers.

This project did not start from scratch, but originated from the merger of Asterus and APX Finance at the end of 2024, combining APX's mature perpetual contract engine with Asterus's liquidity technology.

Explosive Rise

Aster launched at $0.08 on September 17, 2025, and soared to $2.42 within a week, a gain of 2800%. Daily trading volume reached over $70 billion at its peak, briefly dominating the entire perpetual contract DEX market.

The fuel for this "rocket"? CZ. Binance founder supported Aster through YZi Labs and personally promoted it, causing the token to surge directly. In the first 30 days after launch, Aster accumulated over $320 billion in trading volume, briefly capturing more than 50% of the market share.

DefiLlama Delisting Incident

On October 5, 2025, as one of the most trusted data sources in the crypto industry, DefiLlama removed Aster's data because its trading volume was almost identical to Binance's (1:1 correlation).

Real trading platforms show natural fluctuations, while perfect correlation only means one thing: data fraud.

Evidence includes:

- Trading volume patterns perfectly synchronized with Binance (all trading pairs, including XRP, ETH, etc.)

- Aster refused to provide trading data, making it impossible to verify the authenticity of the trades

- 96% of ASTER tokens are concentrated in 6 wallets

- Trading volume/OI ratio of 58+ (healthy level should be below 3)

ASTER token immediately plummeted 10%, from $2.42 to around $1.05 currently.

Aster's Defense

CEO Leonard claimed that this correlation was simply "airdrop users" hedging on Binance. But if true, why refuse to publicly disclose data to prove it?

Weeks later, Aster was re-listed, but DefiLlama warned: "It's still a black box, we cannot verify the data."

What It Actually Provides

Frankly speaking, Aster does have some technological highlights: 1001x leverage; hidden orders; multi-chain support (BNB, Ethereum, Solana); interest-bearing collateral

Additionally, Aster is building the Aster Chain based on zero-knowledge proofs to achieve privacy protection. But no matter how good the technology is, it cannot conceal false metrics.

Conclusion

There is ample evidence:
- Perfect correlation with Binance = fake trading
- Refusal to be transparent = hiding facts
- 96% of tokens concentrated = highly centralized
- DefiLlama delisting = loss of reputation

Aster leveraged CZ's hype and fake trading volume to capture significant value, but failed to build real infrastructure. Perhaps surviving due to Binance's support, but its reputation has been permanently damaged.

For traders: High risk, you're betting on CZ's narrative, not real growth. Set strict stop-losses.
For investors: Avoid, too many risk signals, there are better options in the market (such as Hyperliquid).

Part III: Lighter, Technologically Impressive, Metrics Questionable

Technical Advantages

Lighter is different. Founded by former Citadel engineers and backed by Peter Thiel, a16z, and Lightspeed (financing $68 million, valuation $1.5 billion), its core technology is using zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) to encrypt-verify every transaction.

As an Ethereum layer 2 (L2), Lighter inherits Ethereum's security through a "lifeboat" mechanism—users can still retrieve funds via smart contracts even if the platform fails. Application chains L1 do not have this kind of security guarantee.

Lighter launched on October 2, 2025, and within weeks, TVL broke $1.1 billion, daily trading volume reached $7-8 billion, and users exceeded 56,000.

Zero Fees = Aggressive Strategy

Lighter charges 0 fees for both limit and market orders, completely disrupting traders sensitive to fees.
The strategy is simple: capture market share through an unsustainable economic model, build user loyalty, and then achieve profitability later.

October 11th Stress Test

10 days after mainnet launch, the crypto market faced the largest liquidation event in history, with $19 billion in positions liquidated.

Good news: The system remained operational during 5 hours of chaos, providing liquidity when competitors retreated.

Bad news: The database crashed 5 hours later, causing a 4-hour platform outage.

Worse: LLP lost money, while HLP of Hyperliquid and eLP of EdgeX made profits.

Founder Vlad Novakovski explained: The original plan was to upgrade the database on Sunday, but the violent fluctuations on Friday broke the old system prematurely.

Trading Volume Issues

Data strongly suggests fake volume activities:

- 24-hour trading volume: $12.78 billion

- Open Interest (OI): $1.591 billion

- Trading Volume/OI Ratio: 8.03
- Healthy level = below 3, over 5 is suspicious, 8.03 is extremely abnormal.

Comparison:

Hyperliquid: 1.57 (natural)

EdgeX: 2.7 (moderate)

Aster: 5.4 (concerning)

Lighter: 8.03 (severely fake volume)

For every $1 of capital deployed, they generate $8 of trading volume—frequent flipping to create fake volume, not real holding.
30-day data confirms: $294 billion trading volume vs $47 billion cumulative OI = 6.25 ratio, still far above reasonable levels.

Airdrop Doubts

Lighter's points program is highly aggressive. Points will be exchanged for LITER tokens at TGE (expected Q4 2025/Q1 2026). OTC markets quote points at $5-100+, potential airdrop value of tens of thousands of dollars, so explosive trading volume is understandable.
Key question: What happens after TGE? Will users stay or will trading volume collapse?

Conclusion

Strengths:
Top-tier technology (ZK validation effective)
Zero fees = real competitive advantage
Inherits Ethereum security
Top team and capital support

Concerns:
8.03 trading volume/OI ratio = severe fake volume
LLP lost money in stress test
4-hour outage raises doubts
User retention after airdrop not verified

Difference from Aster: No accusations of fake volume, no DefiLlama delisting. High ratio reflects aggressive but temporary incentives, not systemic fraud.

Bottom line judgment: Lighter has world-class technology, but is wrapped in questionable metrics. Can it convert fake volume users into real users? Technology says "yes", history says "maybe not".

For fake volume users: Good opportunity before TGE.

For investors: Wait 2-3 months after TGE, observe whether trading volume persists.
Probability judgment: 40% to become top 3 platform, 60% to become another "fake volume farm", just with better underlying technology.

Part IV: EdgeX, Institutional-Level Professional Player

Amber Group's Advantage

EdgeX operates differently. It was born from Amber Group's incubator (with $5 billion in assets under management), and the team members come from Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Bybit. This is not "crypto-native" learning finance, but traditional finance (TradFi) experts bringing institutional-level experience into DeFi.

Amber's market-making genes directly empower EdgeX: deep liquidity, tight spreads, and execution quality comparable to centralized exchanges. The platform launched in September 2024 with a clear goal: to achieve CEX-level performance without sacrificing self-custody.

Based on StarkEx (a mature ZK engine from StarkWare), EdgeX can process 200,000 orders per second with latency below 10 milliseconds, matching Binance's speed.

Lower Fees than Hyperliquid

EdgeX outperforms Hyperliquid in fees:

Maker fee: EdgeX 0.038% vs Hyperliquid 0.045%

Taker fee: EdgeX 0.012% vs Hyperliquid 0.015%

For traders with a monthly trading volume of $10 million, they can save $7,000-$10,000 annually, and for retail-level orders (<$6 million), EdgeX offers better liquidity, tighter spreads, and lower slippage.

Real Revenue, Healthy Metrics

Differently from Lighter's zero-fee model or Aster's questionable data, EdgeX creates real, sustainable revenue:

TVL: $489.7 million

24-hour trading volume: $8.2 billion

Open Interest (OI): $780 million

30-day revenue: $41.72 million (147% increase from Q2)

Annualized revenue: $509 million (second only to Hyperliquid)

Trading Volume/OI Ratio: 10.51 (seems bad, but needs deeper analysis)

At first glance, 10.51 is very high, but the background is important: EdgeX used an aggressive points program to attract liquidity in the initial phase, and as the platform matures, this ratio is steadily improving. More importantly, EdgeX maintained healthy revenue during this period, proving there are real traders, not just fake volume users.

Stress Test in October

In the market crash on October 11, EdgeX performed well:
Zero downtime (Lighter had a 4-hour outage)
eLP vaults remained profitable (Lighter's LLP lost money)
LP annualized yield of 57% (highest in the industry)

eLP (EdgeX liquidity pool) demonstrated excellent risk management capabilities in extreme volatility, making profits while competitors struggled.

EdgeX's Differentiated Advantages

Multi-chain Flexibility: Supports Ethereum L1, Arbitrum, BNB Chain; supports USDT and USDC as collateral; allows cross-chain deposits and withdrawals (Hyperliquid only supports Arbitrum).

Best Mobile Experience: Official iOS and Android apps (Hyperliquid has none), simple interface, convenient for managing positions anytime.

Asia Market Strategy: Actively expanding the Asian market through local support and participation in the Korean Blockchain Week, targeting regions neglected by Western competitors.

Transparent Points Program: 60% trading volume, 20% referral, 10% TVL/Pool, 10% liquidation/OI

Clearly stated: "No reward for fake volume trading," and the metrics validate this—trading volume/OI ratio is improving, not worsening.

Challenges

Market share: Only 5.5% of perpetual contract DEX open interest, to grow it needs more aggressive incentives (risk of fake volume) or major partnerships.

Lack of "killer feature": EdgeX performs steadily in all aspects, but lacks disruptive innovation, it's a "business class" option, professional but not impressive.

Unable to compete with Lighter on fees: Zero fees make EdgeX's "lower than Hyperliquid" advantage less attractive.

TGE timing is late: Expected in Q4 2025, missing the first airdrop frenzy.

Conclusion

EdgeX is the choice for professional users—steady over flashy.

Strengths:
Amber Group institutional support
Annualized revenue of $509 million
Profitable vaults in stress tests, APY of 57%
Lower fees than Hyperliquid
No fake volume scandals, clean metrics
Multi-chain support + best mobile experience

Concerns:
Small market share (5.5% OI)
Trading volume/OI ratio still high (but improving)
Lack of unique selling point
Pressure from zero-fee competition

Target audience:

Asian traders needing local support

Institutional users, valuing Amber's liquidity

Conservative traders, prioritizing risk management

Mobile-first users

LP investors seeking stable returns

Bottom line judgment: EdgeX is expected to capture 10-15% market share in the Asian market, institutions, and conservative traders, without threatening Hyperliquid's dominant position. It doesn't need to— it is building a sustainable, profitable niche market.
Think of it as "Kraken in the perpetual contract DEX space": not the biggest, not the flashiest, but steady, professional, and trusted by experienced users who prioritize execution quality.

For fake volume users: Moderate opportunities, less competition than other platforms.
For investors: Suitable for small-position diversified investment, low risk, low return.

Comparative Analysis: Perp DEX War

Trading Volume/Open Interest (OI) Analysis

Industry Standard: Healthy ratio ≤ 3

Hyperliquid: 1.57 ✅ Indicates strong organic trading pattern

Aster: 4.74 ⚠️ High, reflecting a lot of incentive activities

Lighter: 8.19 ⚠️ High ratio implies trade driven by points

EdgeX: 10.51 ⚠️ Points program impact is obvious, but improving

Market Share: Open Interest Distribution

Total market: About $13B open interest

Hyperliquid: 62% - Market Leader

Aster: 18% - Strong second tier

Lighter: 12% - Continued growth

EdgeX: 6% - Focused on niche market

Platform Overview

Hyperliquid - Seasoned Leader

Accounts for 62% of the market share, stable metrics

Annualized revenue $2.9B, active buyback program

Community-owned model, reliable performance

Strengths: Market leadership, sustainable economic model

Rating: A+

Aster - High Growth, High Questions

Strong integration with BNB ecosystem, CZ endorsement

Had DefiLlama data concerns in October 2025

Multi-chain strategy drives adoption

Strengths: Ecosystem support, retail user coverage

Concerns: Need to monitor data transparency issues

Rating: C+

Lighter - Technological Pioneer

Zero-fee model, advanced ZK verification

Top-tier investors (Thiel, a16z, Lightspeed)

Performance data limited in pre-TGE stage (Q1 2026)

Strengths: Technological innovation, Ethereum L2 security

Concerns: Business model sustainability, user retention after airdrop

Rating: Not completed (wait for TGE performance)

EdgeX - Institution-Oriented

Amber Group endorsement, professional-level execution

Annualized revenue $509M, vault performance stable

Asia market strategy, mobile-first

Strengths: Institutional credibility, steady growth

Concerns: Smaller market share, competitive positioning

Rating: B

Investment Considerations

Exchange Selection:

Hyperliquid: Deepest liquidity, proven reliability

Lighter: Zero fees, suitable for high-frequency traders

EdgeX: Lower fees than Hyperliquid, excellent mobile experience

Aster: Multi-chain flexibility, BNB ecosystem integration

Token Investment Timeline:

HYPE: Now available, $37.19

ASTER: Trading price $1.05, need to watch subsequent development

LITER: TGE Q1 2026, evaluate metrics after listing

EGX: TGE Q4 2025, observe initial performance

Key Conclusions

Market Maturity: The Perp DEX sector has clear differences, with Hyperliquid establishing its dominant position through sustainable metrics and community collaboration.

Growth Strategies: Each platform targets different user groups—Hyperliquid (professional), Aster (retail/Asia), Lighter (technology), EdgeX (institutional).

Metric Focus: Trading volume/OI ratio and revenue generation are more reflective of performance than pure trading volume.

Future Outlook: The post-TGE performance of Lighter and EdgeX will determine their long-term competitiveness; Aster's future depends on whether it can address transparency issues and maintain ecosystem support.

Original Title: The Perp DEX Wars of 2025: Hyperliquid, Aster, Lighter, and EdgeX
Original Author: @stacy_muur