Research: On-chain perpetual futures surpass the $1 trillion mark in a month, ushering in a DeFi composability explosion

Coinbase Research Director David Duong stated that the shift in decentralized platforms and trader behavior has made perpetual futures play a more central role in the market. According to Coinbase’s research, on-chain perpetual futures (perpetual contracts) are expected to explode in 2025, with monthly trading volume surpassing $1 trillion. Against the backdrop of a lackluster altcoin season, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) such as Hyperliquid, Aster, and Lighter have successfully captured traders’ demand for leverage. This growth positions these tools as evolving “composable primitives” in decentralized finance (DeFi), with the potential to unlock new integrations with lending, yield farming, and tokenized assets by 2026.

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— David Duong🛡️ (@DavidDuong) December 29, 2025

Perpetual futures allow users to leverage bet on cryptocurrency prices without an expiration date. Industry report data from DeFiLlama shows that in the past 30 days alone, decentralized platforms handled over $972 billion. Among them, Lighter leads with approximately $203 billion, followed by Aster ($171.8 billion) and Hyperliquid ($160.6 billion), highlighting the increasingly fierce competition among Layer 2 protocols. Early peaks include Hyperliquid’s $319 billion in July and Aster’s nearly $36 billion 24-hour trading volume shortly after its launch in September. In a recent analysis, David Duong emphasized the trend toward “composability,” noting that perpetuals are shifting from isolated high-leverage tools to core, composable underlying technologies within the DeFi ecosystem. Duong shared in a Coinbase 2026 outlook on X: “This integration is expected to open new horizons in capital efficiency and benefit from integration with other DeFi foundational technologies (such as lending protocols). For example, such integrations could enable perpetual applications in broader strategies, such as providing dynamic hedging layers for liquidity pools, serving as the basis for interest rate products, or acting as collateral in lending protocols with variable risk parameters. This composability can create a synergistic trading environment, allowing market participants to hedge market risks while earning passive income from assets.”

He also pointed out the potential growth of equity perpetuals, which combine the 24/7 accessibility of cryptocurrencies with the demand for exposure to US stocks outside trading hours, “As global retail participation in the US stock market continues to grow, tokenized stocks are poised to disrupt the market landscape.”

This prosperity reflects the dominant position of derivatives in the cryptocurrency market. In the absence of a rally in altcoins, perpetual futures have occupied most of the activity. Hyperliquid, which has gained attention since late 2023, faces new challengers: Aster debuted in September 2025 and quickly captured over half of the trading volume of perpetual contracts DEXs; meanwhile, Lighter, founded in 2022 and supported by $68 million in funding, launched its LIT token this month with a trading volume of $4.7 billion. Recently, Lighter surpassed Hyperliquid in weekly trading volume, reaching $30.9 billion.

David Duong: “Essentially, tokenized derivatives are moving from the fringes of crypto trading to the core of composable decentralized finance (DeFi), while also preparing for the influx of retail capital worldwide seeking more efficient ways to invest in traditional assets.”