"Sustainable Contract Battle Segmentation" Hyperliquid becomes the preferred choice for traders, after competing platforms' airdrops cool down and are neglected

In the pursuit of high leverage and decentralized gaming, traders are gradually voting with real money. The intense perpetual contract DEX competition has already revealed its outcome—Hyperliquid, with its excellent trading experience and liquidity depth, is rapidly becoming the core choice for traders, while platforms like Aster and Lighter, after the hype of airdrops subsides, are facing the dilemma of rapidly shrinking liquidity.

The Indicator Traders Truly Care About: Open Interest Far Surpasses Trading Volume

On the surface, the main scoreboard of this competition is trading volume. According to CryptoRank and DefiLlama data, in the past 7 days, Hyperliquid’s perpetual contract trading volume reached as high as $40.7 billion, significantly leading Aster’s $31.7 billion and Lighter’s $25.3 billion. But these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.

The real decisive indicator is “Open Interest”—this seemingly obscure number actually reflects whether traders are willing to continue bearing risk or are just chasing short-term rewards. In the past 24 hours, Hyperliquid’s open interest in contracts reached $9.57 billion; in contrast, the combined total of DEXes including Aster, Lighter, Variational, edgeX, and Paradex is only about $7.34 billion.

The implication behind these figures is clear: traders are demonstrating through action that Hyperliquid has become their preferred platform for locking in risk positions, rather than just a transit station for traffic. Truly active traders willing to hold positions are all on Hyperliquid.

The Trap of Reward Mechanisms: Short-term Traffic Surges Cannot Sustain Long-term Stickiness

Behind this differentiation lies a sobering truth: many DEXes overly rely on token incentives to attract traffic but struggle to convert short-term hype into long-term trading activity.

Take Lighter as an example. Before its airdrop in December 2025, trading volume briefly surged; but as the token distribution completed, market enthusiasm cooled rapidly, with weekly trading volume plummeting from around $600 million in December to about $200 million—a sharp halving multiple times. This is not an isolated case.

BitMEX CEO Stephan Lutz warned at the Token2049 summit that token incentives are essentially “spending money on advertising”—they can generate short-term traffic spikes but may not cultivate genuine traders willing to bear risks long-term. Once incentives normalize, liquidity quickly retreats. This is the reality that platforms like Lighter and Aster are experiencing.

What Are the Advantages of Hyperliquid? Why Do Traders Choose to Stay?

In contrast, Hyperliquid does not rely on excessive incentive mechanisms but maintains the highest open interest in the industry. What does this indicate? It shows that traders are not attracted by rewards but are retained by better trading experiences and liquidity depth.

Hyperliquid’s efficient order matching, low slippage, and ample liquidity depth provide real value for professional traders. These advantages cannot be compensated through airdrops nor easily copied by competitors.

The Disconnect Between Token Price and Practical Utility: From Operational Success to Investment Dilemma

However, even though Hyperliquid’s operational data is significantly ahead, the HYPE token’s price performance has not benefited accordingly. This reveals a deeper issue: the market still harbors fundamental doubts about DeFi protocols’ token issuance models, value accumulation mechanisms, and long-term economic sustainability.

In other words, the market has separated “platform utility and trading volume” from “token investment value” into two independent concepts. Hyperliquid has gained traders’ trust and choice but has yet to translate this advantage into lasting economic benefits for token holders.

This also signals future challenges: whether a sustainable economic model can be established—one that allows traders and token holders to win together—will be the key to whether Hyperliquid can become the ultimate winner among perpetual contract DEXes.