A new breakdown from CoinMarketCap highlights the growing dominance of perpetual-focused decentralized exchanges, as traders continue to gravitate toward high-leverage markets and 24/7 onchain derivatives.
The latest 7-day fee leaderboard shows that four of the industry’s top ten “cash-cow” protocols are now either fully perp-driven or heavily reliant on perpetual trading volume.
This shift underscores a broader trend: traders are increasingly comfortable executing leverage onchain, and developers are racing to capture the liquidity pouring into decentralized perps.
Perp DEXes Become Major Revenue Engines
The leaderboard reveals just how quickly the sector is scaling. Hyperliquid generated $18 million in fees over the past week, edging ahead of several long-established DeFi protocols.
Everyone wants to build a Perp DEX for a reason.
Four of the top 10 cash cows (past 7 days) are perp DEXes or perp-driven: 🔹 Hyperliquid $18M 🔹 edgeX $12M 🔹 Jupiter $12M ($10.8M from perps) 🔹 Aster $9.9M
Perp DEX is going to be a wild run pic.twitter.com/xzCNsL2zkV
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) December 5, 2025
EdgeX and Jupiter follow closely with $12 million each, with Jupiter deriving $10.8 million specifically from perpetuals. Meanwhile, Aster contributed $9.9 million, rounding out the list of high-earning perp-driven platforms.
Collectively, these protocols are earning at a pace that places them alongside incumbents like Aave, Lido, and Uniswap, an indicator of where the next wave of DeFi growth may occur.
The Broader Fee Landscape
The full Top 10 fee list still starts with giants like Tether ($164.66M) and Circle ($56.16M), but the presence of so many perp-first protocols in the same lineup is notable. It reinforces the idea that leveraged trading continues to dominate user demand, even during periods of market volatility.
The momentum is so clear that CoinMarketCap described the emerging race to build the next major Perp DEX as “a wild run,” a sentiment echoed across crypto trading communities.
Why Perp DEXes Are Winning
Perpetual exchanges have benefited from a mix of liquidity depth, improved user interfaces, low-latency execution, and token-incentive models that draw both traders and market makers. Many also offer cross-margining and multi-asset collateral, allowing traders to move efficiently across markets without relying on centralized intermediaries.
With four perp-driven platforms ranking among the top revenue generators of the week, the sector is no longer a niche; it’s becoming a defining pillar of onchain market structure.