Perpetual protocol monthly trading volume topped $1 trillion for the first time in September — driven by increasing competition between platforms including Hyperliquid, Aster, and Lighter.
The milestone represents a 48% surge compared to August’s $707.6 billion volume, with September’s total coming in at $1.05 trillion, according to The Block’s data dashboard.
BNB Chain-focused Aster, backed by YZi Labs, came from almost nowhere to lead last month’s perpetual swap trading volume, clocking over $420 billion of activity. The long-dominant custom Layer 1 Hyperliquid platform dropped to second place, generating $282.5 billion in September trading volume — down 29% on its $398 billion August haul. Aster is also planning to launch its own Aster Chain as a ZK-based Layer 1 in the future to support its perpetual trading platform.
Meanwhile, Ethereum Layer 2 perp DEX Lighter has quietly built up a strong presence in recent months, attracting $164.4 billion in September activity to claim third place — while still in private beta. With the Lighter public mainnet now live as of Wednesday, it could further challenge Aster and Hyperliquid in the perpetual protocol space as it opens up to more traders from its current 188,000 unique accounts with over 50,000 daily active users.
A perpetual swap is a derivative contract where the buyer gains synthetic exposure to an asset and the seller takes the opposite short side. Unlike traditional futures, perpetual contracts have no expiration date.
Aster’s rapid rise
Aster, formerly known as APX Finance before a rebrand following a merger with Astherus in March, gained significant traction after its token launch on Sept. 17, boosted by a high-profile public endorsement from Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, co-founder of Binance.
ASTER is currently valued at $14 billion following an initial fully diluted valuation of $560 million at the time of its token generation event. The price of ASTER increased by over 10x from the time of CZ’s endorsement to over $2 in the span of just four days. It is currently trading for $1.75, according to The Block’s Aster price page. The allure of a newly launched token, in addition to a “Binance-adjacent perps dex” narrative, turned what was a normal TGE into a momentum event.
ASTER/USD price chart. Image: The Block/TradingView.
In comparison, Hyperliquid, which launched its perp DEX platform in 2023 and TGE in November, sees HYPE currently trading for $49.63 at a $49.5 billion fully diluted valuation, while Lighter has yet to launch a token.
Aster also recently overtook Hyperliquid in daily perpetual protocol fee revenue for the first time, earning more than $25 million on Sept. 28 compared to Hyperliquid’s $3.2 million that day as its trading volume surged.
Beyond the typical high leverage and multi-chain features commonly seen in other perp DEXs, Aster’s main differentiator is its “hidden orders” feature that lets users place “invisible” limit orders on the orderbook, unlike the transparent, fully visible nature of most onchain perp DEXs.
© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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