22 hours ago
Key takeaways
A caller question of DEX wars has shifted from token incentives to a absorption connected speed, leverage and sustainable infrastructure.
Hyperliquid continues to pb the marketplace with implicit $300 cardinal successful monthly volume, beardown liquidity and rising organization adoption.
Aster’s maturation is powered by airdrops, Binance-backed credibility and leverage that pull nonrecreational traders.
Lighter is gaining momentum done its Ethereum layer-2 speed, zero-fee trading exemplary and exclusive points-based output farming system.
Platforms similar SushiSwap, PancakeSwap and Curve leveraged yield farming and governance token incentives to pull liquidity. This attack catalyzed accelerated superior formation, bringing billions of dollars onchain wrong a abbreviated time.
Those aboriginal battles were astir who could pull the astir total worth locked (TVL) and traders done token incentives — not astir speed, leverage oregon institutional-grade infrastructure. The particulate yet settled with Uniswap taking the lead. The playbook it established, including liquidity mining, airdrops and tokenized participation, became the instauration for the much blase decentralized speech (DEX) wars present unfolding successful perpetuals.
Inside the DEX liquidity wars
Hyperliquid, a DEX built connected its ain high-performance blockchain infrastructure, saw large maturation successful 2025. The speech handled much than $300 billion successful trading measurement astir mid-2025, with regular enactment occasionally approaching $17 billion. Its heavy liquidity and accelerated execution person helped it summation beardown traction among progressive and nonrecreational traders.
One of the cardinal drivers down Hyperliquid’s beardown maturation was its quality to boost liquidity and idiosyncratic enactment done a points-based rewards program. The effort yet led to a ample airdrop.
In total, 27.5% of the token proviso was distributed to 94,000 addresses, rewarding aboriginal and progressive participants. What started arsenic a mode to get much radical trading has since go 1 of the astir invaluable token distributions successful caller crypto history. The airdrop is present valued astatine astir $7 billion-$8 billion.
Rivals are, however, catching up fast.
Aster is simply a rapidly increasing DEX built connected BNB Smart Chain that has positioned itself arsenic 1 of Hyperliquid’s main competitors. On immoderate days, reported trading volumes person astatine times surged into the tens of billions of dollars, occasionally surpassing Hyperliquid’s figures. The project’s transportation to Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, co-founder of Binance, has besides drawn important attraction from the market.
Meanwhile, Lighter, a caller speech built connected an Ethereum rollup, has reported regular trading volumes surpassing $8 billion.
Together, these challengers are turning what was erstwhile Hyperliquid’s wide pb into a three-way combat for marketplace share.
According to Calder White, main exertion serviceman of Vigil Labs — a Silicon Valley startup that precocious raised $5.7 cardinal to use AI to recognize and commercialized cryptocurrency markets — the evident surge has precise antithetic underpinnings crossed platforms.
“Our strategy shows that Aster’s maturation is precise narrative-driven, with traders recycling superior to summation volumes, portion Hyperliquid continues to transportation the astir integrated travel from superior participants. Both Aster and Lighter are relying connected the aforesaid points-to-airdrop playbook to bootstrap liquidity and enactment to vie with Hyperliquid for marketplace share,” said White.
Aster’s high-stakes play for DEX dominance
Aster’s momentum comes from its adjacent ties to CZ, who present advises the project. His engagement has led galore online to notation to Aster arsenic “Binance’s DEX.” The speech has introduced tokenized stocks, allowing users to commercialized large assets onchain with up to 1,000x leverage. It besides plans to motorboat its ain layer-1 blockchain.
The operation has turned Aster into 1 of the astir daring experiments successful DEX plan to date.
Fueling that emergence is Aster’s monolithic airdrop program, which rewards users for generating trading activity. Season 2 distributed 320 cardinal Aster tokens worthy astir $600 cardinal and concluded connected Oct. 5, 2025.
The inducement exemplary has already translated into beardown activity. Aster precocious generated implicit $20 cardinal successful 24-hour fees, placing it among the apical gross earners successful decentralized concern (DeFi). There’s besides increasing speculation that the squad whitethorn beryllium utilizing portion of those net for token buybacks. If true, that determination could further boost Aster’s token worth and assistance prolong trader involvement beyond the airdrop period.
Some participants basal to gain important rewards, ranging from thousands of dollars to imaginable seven-figure payouts for the astir progressive traders. The standard of these incentives has driven beardown measurement crossed the platform, though it remains to beryllium seen whether users volition proceed trading erstwhile the rewards taper off.
Airdrops and exclusivity thrust Lighter’s rise
Lighter has rapidly established itself arsenic 1 of the much technically ambitious stacks successful DeFi. Built connected a customized Ethereum layer-2 with zero-knowledge circuits, it supports sub-five-millisecond matching latency. The extremity is to attack centralized speech (CEX) speeds. The level offers zero trading fees for retail users, portion API and organization flows look premium charges.
Lighter has driven accelerated maturation done its Lighter Liquidity Pool (LLP) program, which has go 1 of the astir charismatic output opportunities successful DeFi. The excavation presently offers astir 60% yearly percent output (APY) connected much than $400 cardinal successful deposits. Access to the LLP is linked to a user’s points balance, giving higher allocation limits to much progressive traders.
Lighter’s zero-fee exemplary and points strategy person fueled increasing speculation among traders. Since its launch, the speech has recorded important trading volumes, astatine times rivaling Hyperliquid. Much of the excitement present centers connected expectations of an upcoming token launch, wide rumored to instrumentality spot aboriginal this year.
While determination is nary token conscionable yet, there’s already a bustling over-the-counter marketplace for Lighter points, with points being sold for tens of dollars each. Prices person climbed from $39 to implicit $60, with 1 trader reportedly spending $1 cardinal astatine $41 each.
One of the easiest ways to worth a perpetual DEX is by examining unfastened involvement (OI), which represents the full worth of each trades inactive unfastened connected the platform. The higher the OI, the much existent wealth is sitting successful positions. On Hyperliquid, for example, $13.2 cardinal successful OI supports a circulating marketplace capitalization of astir $15.2 billion.
Lighter presently holds astir $2.1 cardinal successful OI. Assuming astir 15%-20% of tokens are unlocked astatine the clip of its token launch, this would connote a circulating marketplace headdress of astir $1 billion-$1.1 cardinal and a afloat diluted valuation (FDV) adjacent $5 billion-$5.5 billion. With astir 12 cardinal points tied to that archetypal float, each constituent would beryllium valued astatine astir $83 to $100.
Should 15%-20% of the proviso beryllium allocated to the community, that would construe into an airdrop worthy $750 million-$1.1 cardinal for users — perchance 1 of the astir important token distributions successful DeFi since Hyperliquid’s drop.
Institutional liquidity enters the chat
A increasing subplot successful this conflict is the gradual but notable introduction of organization liquidity. Funds that erstwhile avoided onchain derivatives, citing slippage, latency oregon compliance concerns, are present allocating trial superior to these platforms.
Hyperliquid’s speed-focused, transparent plan has attracted increasing involvement from nonrecreational traders, portion Aster’s Binance-linked communicative is drafting important attraction crossed Asian trading communities.
Lighter, with its sub-five-millisecond execution velocity and onchain colony model, is drafting involvement from prop-trading firms looking for output without counterparty risk. The adjacent signifier of the DEX wars whitethorn beryllium little connected airdrops and much connected which platforms tin connection the astir reliable rails for superior capital.
Infrastructure vs. narrative: Who wins successful the agelong run?
While contention betwixt Lighter, Aster and Hyperliquid keeps heating up, Hyperliquid inactive sets the benchmark successful onchain derivatives, supported by unmatched unfastened interest, beardown execution prime and increasing organization traction.
Instead of slowing down, the speech has stepped up its efforts, introducing HIP-3, which allows anyone to motorboat a perp DEX connected Hyperliquid’s rails, launching its USDH stablecoin and moving rapidly to database perpetuals for rival tokens similar ASTER to seizure narrative-driven flows.
Hyperliquid has besides kept its assemblage engaged done caller reward mechanics. The Hypurr non-fungible token (NFT) collection, launched connected Sep. 28, 2025, rapidly became a hit, with level prices hovering astir 1,200 HYPE (roughly $55,000 each). The collection’s beardown request has fueled speculation astir aboriginal reward rounds and imaginable updates to the points program.
According to White, this divided among emerging DEXs shows however acold incentives tin determination markets compared to however overmuch infrastructure tin stabilize them.
“Hyperliquid is betting connected execution and liquidity, portion Aster and Lighter are showing conscionable however acold incentives tin agelong the market,” helium said.
“The existent trial volition beryllium whether traders enactment erstwhile the airdrop euphony fades.”
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