DEX Perp Volume Explodes To $6.7 Trillion In 2025, CoinGecko Data Shows

Perpetual swap trading across the top 10 centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges reached $92.9 trillion in 2025 — a 64.6% year-over-year increase that occurred not during a rally but against a broad market decline — while decentralized perpetual platforms surged 346% to $6.7 trillion in annual volume.

What Happened: Perp DEXs Explode

According to a CoinGecko research report published this week, the crypto derivatives market has undergone a structural shift away from centralized platforms and toward decentralized alternatives. Two decentralized exchanges broke into the top 10 perpetual platforms globally: Hyperliquid ranked No. 7 with $2.9 trillion in annual volume, and Lighter ranked No. 10 with $1.3 trillion.

Hyperliquid more than doubled the volume of Coinbase International, which processed roughly $1.4 trillion in 2025.

The platform, launched less than two years earlier, built its own Layer 1 blockchain — called HyperCore — to handle sub-second trade finality and throughput exceeding 20,000 orders per second.

Open interest data reflected the same directional shift.

CEX open interest fell 20.8% in 2025, while DEX open interest rose 229.6%, according to the report.

CEX spot volumes also dropped sharply, from $2.21 trillion in Jan. 2025 to $950 billion by Dec. 2025.