DEX futures market share surges to ATH as perp trading volumes explode

Analysts tracking onchain markets say DEX spot volumes from May to October stayed above levels seen in previous years and peaked at roughly $419 billion in October, even as the broader crypto market faced a correction. Over the year, combined DEX trading volume rose by around 37%, with average monthly volume near $412 billion and Ethereum-based platforms accounting for close to 87% of decentralized trading by volume. The derivatives segment has expanded even faster. 

Perpetual futures trading on DEXs reached about $898 billion in the second quarter of 2025 and set a new high of roughly $903 billion in October, according to one statistical review of the sector. Researchers estimate that DEXs now handle roughly 26% of the crypto futures market, while the ratio of DEX to centralized exchange (CEX) perpetuals volume climbed for 14 consecutive months and hit an all-time high of around 11.7% in November 2025. 

A handful of large platforms concentrate much of this activity. Hyperliquid onchain derivatives venue recorded approximately $653 billion in perpetuals trading during the second quarter alone, giving it about 73% of the DEX perps market for that period and taking its year-to-date volume to roughly $2.74 trillion by late 2025 – a level analysts say is comparable to major centralized exchanges. 

Newer perpetuals DEXs such as incentive-driven platforms on high-throughput chains have also contributed to the increase, backed by reward programs designed to attract both retail and professional traders. On the spot side, weekly DEX trading volume averaged about $18.6 billion in the second quarter, and the number of unique wallets interacting with DEXs grew from roughly 6.8 million to 9.7 million by mid-2025, underscoring broader adoption of self-custodial trading. 

Activity remains concentrated in major token pairs such as BTC and ETH against dollar-pegged stablecoins, while low-fee chains like Solana and various Ethereum Layer-2 networks capture increasing shares of daily swaps. Researchers link the surge in volumes to several factors, including speculative trading in memecoins earlier in the year, the growth of liquid staking tokens, and the rollout of new technical designs such as hybrid central limit order book models and concentrated-liquidity automated market makers that aim to narrow the performance gap with centralized venues. 

Routing through multi-chain aggregators has also risen, with some services now handling nearly $4 billion in weekly flow as traders search for the best available execution across pools and networks. Despite the growth, analysts caution that risk remains a central concern. 

In the first quarter of 2025, Web3 exploits and attacks led to losses exceeding $2 billion, with around 80% of some loss periods attributed to decentralized finance protocols, including DEXs and related infrastructure. Several high-profile incidents earlier in the year involved nine-figure losses at individual protocols, prompting renewed calls for formal verification, audits and stricter risk controls in the onchain trading stack.

Even with those setbacks, the latest datasets portray DEXs as a growing pillar of the crypto trading landscape in 2025, handling record spot and derivatives volumes, serving tens of millions of wallets and steadily increasing their share of activity traditionally dominated by centralized exchanges.