DEX Perpetual Volumes Soar 346% to $6.7 Trillion in Crypto Market Shift
The crypto derivatives market has undergone a significant shift towards decentralized exchanges (DEXs), according to a recent CoinGecko research report. In 2025, DEX perpetual volumes exploded to $6.7 trillion, representing a 346% year-over-year increase. This growth was not seen during a rally but rather against a broad market decline.
The top 10 centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges saw perpetual swap trading reach $92.9 trillion in 2025, a 64.6% increase from the previous year. Two DEXs broke into the top 10: Hyperliquid, which ranked No. 7 with $2.9 trillion in annual volume, and Lighter, ranking No. 10 with $1.3 trillion.
Hyperliquid more than doubled the volume of Coinbase International, which processed around $1.4 trillion in 2025. The platform's own Layer 1 blockchain, HyperCore, enables sub-second trade finality and throughput exceeding 20,000 orders per second. Open interest data reflects this shift: CEX open interest fell by 20.8% in 2025, while DEX open interest rose by 229.6%.
The data suggests that the crypto market is following a trajectory similar to traditional finance, where derivatives volumes often exceed spot markets by factors of 10 to 50. The interest rate swaps market alone has notional value exceeding $400 trillion, compared to around $130 trillion in global bond markets.