2024 has emerged as a monumental year for crypto perpetual trading, marked by both centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs) breaking through to achieve truly staggering volumes.
What accounts for this surge? A combination of seemingly inexhaustible market demand, technological development, and the relentless evolution of the crypto trading space.
Centralized exchanges still take the lion’s share of the market, but decentralized platforms are making quite a name for themselves, too, with new entrants like Hyperliquid also showing some very impressive growth numbers. With Bitcoin’s ongoing lead in open interest and DEXs now enjoying some very rapid top-line growth of their own, the cloud of the crypto perpetual market is obviously setting some very high precedents for itself over this year.
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CEX Perpetual Trading: A Dominant Surge
In 2024, centralized exchange perpetual volumes have climbed to new peaks, achieving a mind-boggling $58.5 trillion traded on these platforms. This is a huge leap compared to previous years and shows that CEXs are still dominating the crypto trading space. When it comes to the top 10 centralized perpetual exchanges, we saw a serious increase there as well. Those exchanges reached a combined trading volume of $21.2 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, which represented a monthly growth rate of 79.6% from the third quarter.
Even though this may seem to suggest that the competition is getting stronger, it really just shows that Binance’s most significant rival is itself. This top-level competitor can be thought of as a slightly lower fee structure; a steadily declining number of trading pairs, especially with margin trading; the straightforward perpetual trading platform; and a couple of friends: a section of the website that encourages and instructs people to use limit orders, and a video that makes limit orders seem as easy as using a market order.
This year, one of the most important developments in perpetual trading on centralized exchanges (CEXs) was the appearance of Coinbase in the list of top 10 perpetual exchanges. This is the first time that the San Francisco-based exchange has appeared in that category, and it came after an almost fourfold increase in the exchange’s trading volume from October to December 2022. That increase suggests that Coinbase, which is now working with several top-tier market makers, has a better chance of being included in the list of traders’ favorites.
DEX Perpetual Trading: A Growing Presence
Perpetual trading volume growth was also impressive in 2024, on the decentralized exchange side. While the decentralized exchange (DEX) perpetual market is still smaller than the centralized exchange (CEX) perpetual market, the top 10 decentralized exchanges together tallied $492.8 billion in total trading volume in Q4 2024, per Dune Analytics, which was a 55.9% increase from Q3 2024.
State of Crypto Perpetuals Market 2024 Report is NOW LIVE 📊
Crypto perpetual trading hit new highs in 2024, with both centralized and decentralized exchanges seeing record-breaking volumes.
Here are 3 key highlights you shouldn't miss 👇 pic.twitter.com/jL35SWUwgV
— CoinGecko (@coingecko) March 14, 2025
Hyperliquid became the clear leader in the DEX perpetual market, taking over 55% of the market share by Q4. They peaked in December, shortly after they did a $HYPE airdrop, which sent trading activity surging. The result—with the look of an effective way to boost engagement—was the platform was clearly successful. And overall, the platform highlights something really interesting about decentralized exchanges: Despite the common perception of crypto being dead these days, they might actually be on to something in our ongoing tealocal news tour for the CEX model.
In the meantime, another decentralized platform, JupiterExchange, cemented its position as the second-largest perpetual DEX. Yet, it’s essential to underscore that perpetual exchanges based on Solana still made up only about 15% of the overall DEX volumes. On the upside, these Solana DEXs are showing much more rapid growth than their on-chain peers, which might suggest a change in the Solana decentralized trading landscape. The question is, why?
Bitcoin and Open Interest: Continued Dominance
Although perpetual trading volumes grew significantly in both centralized and decentralized exchange markets, Bitcoin continued to dominate the perpetual trading landscape. By November 2024, the top central exchanges had accumulated over $100 billion in open interest, and they maintained that number for the rest of the year. Of that amount, around 45% came from Bitcoin, with a little more than 20% from Ethereum, and the decentralized exchange Solana having just 4%.
It is not surprising that Bitcoin dominates perpetual trading, given that it is the most recognized and traded cryptocurrency. Its continued leadership in open interest underscores its central role in the crypto markets and the appetition for perpetual contracts tied to the asset. Moreover, Bitcoin’s role in open interest has been reinforced by a series of noteworthy events, including significant price movements and major institutional interest all throughout 2024.
The trading volume of Solana’s perpetual contracts shot up at certain times in 2024, among them the following:
– March 15, mid-week
– June 24, Friday
– August 1, Tuesday
What correlated with those spikes? Solana’s underpinned assets were part of the conversation in trading circles, especially around those dates most likely because the tokens being discussed were also surging.
Looking Ahead: A Thriving Market
Perpetual trading in crypto seems to have a bright future ahead. Both centralized exchanges (CEX) and decentralized exchanges (DEX) are experiencing growth. Innovations are aplenty, and the desire for crypto derivatives keeps surging. We remain in an era where Bitcoin (BTC) reigns supreme. At the same time, platforms like Hyperliquid are emerging. They and many other decentralized platforms are building the next wave of trading opportunities in an increasingly diverse markets.
Moving forward into 2024, decentralized exchanges will have a chance to prove their staying power against centralized ones. An ever-growing number of retail and institutional traders appear to be gravitating toward decentralized finance (DeFi). Where might the perpetual volume balance between CEX and DEX be headed?
Currently, the crypto perpetual market is booming, and traders are keenly observing the ongoing evolution of both centralized exchange (CEX) and decentralized exchange (DEX) platforms. Enhanced innovation and heightened adoption are setting the stage for 2024 to be a year of substantial evolution for perpetual contracts within the crypto ecosystem.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any service.
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