Derivatives Market Contracts as Crypto Volumes Plummet to Multi-Month Lows

The crypto derivatives market has cooled down significantly in July, with perpetual futures volumes hitting multi-month lows across major centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

CryptoRank's data shows that CEX perpetual futures volume dropped to $4 trillion in July, the lowest level since December 2023. Binance accounted for most of this volume at $1.4 trillion, followed by OKX and Bybit with $607 billion and $300 billion respectively.

This decline is concerning because it points to thinner speculative momentum, where liquidity and positioning matter as much as spot demand. The slowdown in derivatives activity also coincided with a 23.6% drop in CEX spot trading volume to $13.6 billion from $17.8 billion at the start of the month.

The same trend was observed on DEXs, where DefiLlama data indicates perpetual trading volume fell to $531 billion in July, near a one-year low. Additionally, DEX open interest dropped to $17.9 billion in July from a September 2025 peak of $19.4 billion.

However, Hyperliquid stood out as the leading platform on DEXs, with a significant shift towards tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). RWAs accounted for 32% of Hyperliquid's second-quarter trading activity and represented 52% of the protocol's total weekly trading volume between July 13 and July 19.