Perpetual DEXs

Perpetual DEXs let you trade leveraged futures on-chain without surrendering custody to a centralized exchange. They now settle tens of billions of dollars in monthly volume, and the gap between the best and worst venues is enormous — not in headline fees, but in execution quality, liquidation mechanics, and the trust assumptions baked into each design. This hub compares every credible venue on those dimensions.

Architecture is the first fork. Order-book perps (Hyperliquid, dYdX, Aevo, Vertex) match makers and takers directly, which gives tight spreads and CEX-like execution on liquid markets but depends on active market makers for depth. Pool-based perps (GMX) trade against a shared liquidity pool, which guarantees fillability and zero price impact at the oracle price but transfers risk to liquidity providers and caps the asset set. A growing middle ground runs an on-chain order book on a purpose-built chain — Hyperliquid's own L1 is the clearest example — chasing CEX performance without a centralized matching backend.

Fees are more subtle than the advertised maker/taker rate. Effective cost is the sum of taker fee, funding rate, spread, and slippage on the size you actually trade. A venue with a headline 0.025% taker fee but thin books can cost more on a large order than a slightly higher-fee venue with deep liquidity. Our DEX fee research page tracks live maker/taker tables across venues, and our comparisons weight realized cost on representative trade sizes rather than the sticker rate.

The risk surface for perps is its own discipline. Liquidation engines differ in how aggressively they de-lever and whether they socialize losses; thin-market listings invite liquidation cascades; and chain-level trust — a new L1's validator set, or a bridge you must cross to fund your account — sits underneath all of it. Every perp comparison here states the liquidation model, the depth on major markets, and the chain assumptions before it gets to fees.