DEX perpetual volume hits 2025 low – Are CEXs pulling traders away?
Perpetual market flows have narrowed considerably across the board, though traditional investors are holding their positions and staying active.
Decentralized exchange (DEX) perpetual markets have now set a new low for the year, as trading volume measured across 17 venues, including Lighter [LIT], Hyperliquid [HYPE], and Aster [ASTER], has fallen to $355.78 billion for the month of July.
Volumes had previously peaked at $1.19 trillion in October 2025 and have been declining steadily since. Notably, volume picked up gradually between April and June, hinting at renewed investor interest.
However, the monthly volume for July has now dropped to its lowest level since April 2025, when perpetual trading volume stood at $311.41 billion.
Further insights show that this is a reflection of shifting behavior among traders in the market, as more trading has been taking place in centralized exchange (CEX) perpetual markets compared with decentralized perpetual markets.
The DEX-to-CEX futures ratio has plummeted to 11.49% as of writing, a sharp fall compared with November 2025, when the ratio had reached 21.6%.
Traditional traders remain active in perpetual markets
Data shows that traditional traders in the market remain very much active, as their capital keeps growing.
Tracking the activity on HIP-3, the arm that enables the trading of commodities and equities on a 24-hour basis, shows that Open Interest (OI) hit a new all-time high of $3.96 billion on the 30th of July.
This growth has been seen throughout the year. The surge in OI means there is more capital in the perpetual market for the asset, implying traders are committing more funds to the market, a sign of the product’s underlying utility. At press time, OI stood at $3.59 billion.
Trading volume on HIP-3 has been running high, and as of the 29th of July, the volume hit an all-time high as well, reaching $9.19 billion, though it has since declined to roughly $6.99 billion as of July 31 on the chart.
In fact, the majority of the trade could be tied to activity linked to the equities market, with $741.04 million on the S&P 500.
U.S. investors sell ETFs
On the broader crypto-related scale, there has been a massive decline in crypto holdings among U.S. investors.
Total exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows saw a massive outflow on Bitcoin on Friday, with sales of roughly $265 million. Though net weekly flows recorded a smaller outflow of $61.53 million for the week ending on the 31st of July, as inflows earlier in the week absorbed much of Friday’s selling.
More broadly, the crypto market has been slowing down, with activity across the market seeing a significant plunge.
According to CoinMarketCap, centralized exchanges (CEX) account for 96.03% of the total derivatives trades in the market. Overall, the perpetual trading volume has plunged from a high of $1.65 trillion down to $356.5 billion at the time of reporting.
Final Summary
- Trading is drifting away from decentralized platforms toward centralized exchanges, which now handle the vast majority of derivatives activity.
- Traders are pouring more money into round-the-clock commodity and equity markets, a sign of steady demand underneath the slowdown.
