CLOB wars data: CLOBs hold 92% of perp volume, HL 57.9% share
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TL;DR of A1's data-driven CLOB landscape: CLOBs dominate perps but lag in spot, Hyperliquid leads with falling fee revenue, competitors use zero-fee and PFOF models, and the market likely consolidates to 3-5 platforms.
Key claims
CLOBs 92.04% of perp volume ($607B in 30d)
HL $350.3B 30d volume, 57.9% share, 81.56% of CLOB OI, fee revenue -39% MoM
CLOBs only 12.4% of spot volume vs AMMs 87.6%
The CLOB wars are in full swing.
What strikes me the most, is the sheer number of projects building in this vertical.
The design space is wide, and ranges from onchain apps or permissionless CLOB infra being built within existing/composable ecosystems to novel appchain designs, all specifically optimizing for throughput, latency or fairness.
In our second @a1research__ article as part of the CLOB campaign, we put the focus on a data-driven analysis of the current landscape.
This is a piece you rly can't miss, so highly recommend to check out the full article linked below.
In the meantime, here is a TL;DR ↓
➤ Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) DEXs now command the onchain derivatives market, capturing 92.04% of perpetuals volume ($607 billion in 30 days) among top protocols, marking a complete high-impact shift from the previous AMM-dominated era.
➤ Hyperliquid is the undisputed leader, processing $350.3 billion in 30-day volume (57.9% market share) and holding 81.56% of total CLOB open interest. However, its fee revenue dropped 39% month-over-month, signaling intense pressure from new competitors.
➤ Aggressive competitors are gaining market share through innovative models and incentive programs. Lighter ($133B volume) uses a zero-fee model for retail, while Paradex ($9.4B volume) employs a Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) system, forcing margin compression across the industry.
➤ Despite their derivatives success, CLOBs significantly lag in spot markets still, capturing only 12.4% of volume ($26.4 billion) compared to AMMs' 87.6% ($212 billion). This gap represents a major structural challenge and a massive opportunity for expansion.
➤ Performance is dictated by architecture. Leaders leverage custom L1s (Hyperliquid), ZK rollups (e.g. Lighter, EdgeX, Paradex), and high-performance apps built on high-throughput L1s to achieve CEX-grade latency and high throughput.
➤ Early leaders like dYdX v4 are now strategic laggers. Despite a loyal user base and high fee capture (1.28%), its slower performance (1,000ms finality) and isolated appchain model have led to a declining market share.
➤ The DEX-to-CEX futures volume ratio has surged from under 2% in 2022 to approximately 8% by September 2025, driven by CLOBs achieving performance parity with centralized venues, a trend set to accelerate in coming months.
➤ User metrics reveal Hyperliquid's sustained organic growth (361,300 monthly users), Aster's explosive, incentive-driven surge (330,000 wallet creations within minimal timeframe), and the stable but smaller communities of platforms like dYdX and Drift.
➤ Success is currently driven by delivering tight spreads and low latency, as well as a strong liquidity base (where leveraging shared liquidity backends can help), creating MEV-resistant matching engines, and using aggressive pricing and/or incentive models to acquire users.
xx The market is likely to consolidate into 3-5 major platforms, with liquidity becoming embedded in wallets and dApps. A shift towards modular appchain architectures and an aggressive push by CLOBs to capture the larger spot market will define the next phase of competition.
DYOR anon and make sure to check out our article below! ↓
Why are we seeing CLOB season emerge now?
A rapidly maturing infra stack is a crucial enabler of the move to high-performance CLOBs.
From high-performance execution layers to ZK infra, oracles, DA layers or rollup SDKs, a lot of infrastructural complexity is increasingly abstracted.
QUOTING @a1research__
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What came next · since 30 Sep 2025
Since then
Zero has written 14 more pieces on A1 Research since this one.
- Perp DEX Wars: institutional scorecard and the case for ParadexOn A1 Research
- Perp DEX Wars report: eight platforms, one institutional scorecardOn A1 Research
- Machines & Money: how Web3 flattens the world of moneyOn A1 Research
- Greenland tariffs test: Bitcoin is a high-beta macro asset, not digital goldOn A1 Research