Perp DEXs Will Eat TradFi 2026: Delphi Digital

Perp DEXs handle only a fraction of the trading activity seen in TradFi investments, but their infrastructure is catching up to the slow and fragmented centralized trading venues.

Perpetual decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are gaining traction as traders turn to blockchain-based platforms that promise lower costs and fewer intermediaries than traditional centralized venues.

blockchain-based venues for trading perpetual futures contracts, allowing traders to bet on the underlying asset’s price with leverage and without an expiry date.

Crypto research firm Delphi Digital said in its outlook for 2026 that perp DEXs are poised to continue taking market share from traditional finance products. It argued that decentralized infrastructure is structurally more efficient than legacy systems, which it described as fragmented and expensive to operate.

“Now Hyperliquid is building native lending. Perp DEXs could become brokerage, exchange, custodian, bank, and clearinghouse all at once,” wrote Delphi Digital in a Tuesday X , adding that competitors such as Aster, Lighter and Paradex are “racing to catch up.”

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Perp DEXs have already taken a significant share of revenue from centralized exchanges, as their market share rose from 2.1% in January 2023 to a new all-time high of 11.7% in November 2025, to a report by data aggregator CoinGecko.

*DEX to CEX perps volume ratio. Source: CoinGecko*

The growing adoption of decentralized trading platforms may bolster the leading DEX token, Hyperliquid (), to over $200 in the next 10 years, .

The company’s prediction assumed that the token’s price will grow at a 15% compound annual growth rate while the Assistance Fund will repurchase about 291 million HYPE tokens, reducing the total supply to 666 million tokens.

*HYPE token predictions, 10-year forecast. Source: Cantor Fitzgerald*

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The cumulative trading volume of during 2025, reaching $12.09 trillion, up from $4.1 trillion at the start of the year, Cointelegraph reported on Dec. 31.

About $7.9 trillion, or 65% of the total perp DEX volume, was generated in 2025, according to DefiLlama , showing the significant adoption of these trading platforms during the past year.

However, this figure pales in comparison to the notional value of outstanding over-the-counter derivatives, which reached $846 trillion in June 2025, according to from the Bank for International Settlements.

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