Hyperliquid is no longer just the shiny new decentralized exchange for perpetual futures (a perp DEX). Recent data from CoinGecko suggests it even surpassed Coinbase International’s derivatives volume in 2025, putting it forward as arguably the most credible “Binance killer” candidate in the crypto derivatives market.
Hyperliquid: The Rise of The Underdog
Despite having launched only in 2023, Hyperliquid has climbed mountains that most DEXs can never even get close to, going from just a curious DeFi outlier to a genuine force of nature in the derivatives stack. At peak, the platform cleared around 4–5 billion dollars in daily trading volume, rivaling, and at times surpassing, mid‑tier centralized exchanges in both activity and open interest.
In Q2 2025 alone, the perp‑focused venue processed roughly 653 billion dollars in trading volume, marking the first time a decentralized platform has outtraded a legacy player like Coinbase International in derivatives.
CEX vs DEX: The Tale Of A Mass Migration
Hyperliquid sits at the center of a market seems to finally be starting to move off centralized rails. The capital which used to default to centralized futures platforms, such as Binance, is now comfortable routing size through smart contracts.
On the derivatives front, despite centralized exchanges (CEX) still handling the bulk of the trading, the DEX perp volume climbed from roughly 0.26 trillion dollars in January to around 0.84 trillion by December 2025. In 2025, the top 10 centralized exchanges still dominated spot trading with between 0.95 and 2.21 trillion dollars in monthly volume, but once again DEXs quietly carved out a meaningful slice, ranging from 0.16 to 0.42 trillion on the spot side over the year.
Even after the seasonal cool‑down into December, with CEX perps near 5.3 trillion and DEX perps still above 0.8 trillion, on‑chain derivatives are clearly holding on to a much larger share of the market than they had just a year before.
Why This Matters For The “Binance Killer” Narrative
The fastest growing spot of on-chain venues are perpetual futures, which happens to be one of Binance’s core profit engines. Hyperliquid isn’t just a part of a broader shift: it is capturing an enormous, even disproportionate, share of it, turning itself into the default routing choice for traders who want CEX‑grade execution without surrendering custody. So, even when Binance remains the center of gravity for crypto derivatives today, if the market anoints a true on‑chain challenger over the next cycle, the numbers suggest that challenger is far more likely to be Hyperliquid than anyone else.
Cover image from ChatGPT, HYPEUSD chart from Tradingview
