Best DEXs for trading perpetual futures in 2025
Hyperliquid
Ostium
Lighter
Top crypto DEXs for perpetual trading
- Perpetual DEXs let you trade crypto futures onchain, giving you CEX-style long/short exposure while keeping full control of your assets. Positions settle transparently via smart contracts, making them useful for anyone who wants leverage and advanced trading tools without relying on a centralized exchange.
- We reviewed the top perp DEXs across every major chain to see which platforms actually deliver when it comes to transparency, execution quality, liquidity depth and real trading costs.
- Each review covers the exchange’s core technical details, its fee structure and our honest opinion on how smooth a trading experience it offers.
- Take a look below to identify the best platform for your needs, whether you’re looking for advanced trading features, a beginner-friendly interface, broad asset choice or high-leverage markets.
The List
A first-mover decentralized perps exchange powered by USDe — Ethena’s synthetic, yield-bearing dollar — giving traders continuous yield on collateral while they trade.
An ultra-fast onchain orderbook DEX with deep liquidity and transparent execution, built on its own Layer 1 blockchain.
Paradex is a zero-fee perpetual and options DEX built on the Starknet stack, combining CEX-level liquidity, privacy, and speed with full onchain settlement.
A fast, transparent perpetual DEX that lets users trade with up to 50x leverage, zero fees for retail accounts, and verifiable onchain order matching and liquidations.
Drift is a decentralized perpetual and spot exchange on Solana combining order book precision, AMM liquidity, and just-in-time market-making for capital-efficient, low-slippage trading.
GMX is a multichain spot and perpetuals DEX that routes every trade against on-chain pools, quotes oracle index prices, and supports up to 100x leverage with low price impact.
Aster is a multi-chain DEX offering perpetual and spot trading with up to 1001x leverage and yield-bearing collateral.
Ostium is an Arbitrum-based perpetuals DEX that offers synthetic exposure to real-world assets like forex, commodities, indices, and stocks, with leverage up to 200x and transparent onchain settlement.
Extended is a hybrid perpetual futures DEX built on Starknet, offering USDC-settled perps on both crypto and selected TradFi markets with leverage up to 100x.
Reya is a high-performance perpetual futures exchange building on ReyaChain: a trading-focused based zk rollup environment designed to deliver sub-millisecond execution while inheriting Ethereum’s security.
How we score perpetual DEXs
How we score perpetual DEXs
Our perp DEX scores focus on how each platform performs where it matters most: execution quality, liquidity, trading costs and real-world usability. We’re interested in the typical trading experience for users, rather than marketing hype or gimmicks.
Liquidity and execution: We measure how deep and reliable each DEX’s markets are, especially during volatile moves. Orderbook speed, oracle accuracy, spreads and slippage all factor into scoring. Platforms that consistently deliver fast, fair fills score higher than those with thin books or wide spreads.
Trading costs and funding: Headline fees don’t tell the full story. We evaluate maker/taker fees, funding rates, borrow fees, price impact and any hidden costs built into the model. DEXs with predictable, transparent costs rate better.
Supported markets and leverage: We consider both the breadth of tradable assets and how responsibly leverage is offered. Exchanges with many liquid markets and stable risk controls score higher than those that list hundreds of pairs but with poor depth or extreme, impractical leverage.
Security, settlement, and transparency: All DEXs run on smart contracts, but not all are equally transparent. We review chain choice, oracle design, margin systems, audit history and how liquidations are handled. Fully on-chain settlement or provable matching earns higher trust scores than opaque off-chain components.
Accessibility and usability: Onboarding flow, geoblocking and general UX contribute to the usability rating. DEXs that are fast to access and easy to trade on, without constant wallet signing or regional restrictions, perform better.
The final score reflects the real trading conditions across each exchange. Our goal is to highlight the DEXs that deliver the best mix of liquidity, transparency, and performance for everyday perpetual futures traders.
Frequently Asked Questions
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