RWA platforms differ drastically in asset utilization: Securitize leads in issuance at $4.11B but only 0.7% is active in DeFi, while Maple achieves 62% utilization despite smaller size, highlighting the critical gap between tokenization and actual DeFi activity.
DeFi & Yields ·
Perpetual DEX trading has contracted sharply while open interest has held firm, revealing a market structure where capital churns far less frequently despite remaining substantial. Over two consecutive six-month periods, average daily volume across perpetual DEXs fell from $32.4 billion to $21.4 billion—a 34% decline—while open interest dropped only marginally from $16.4 billion to $14.8 billion. This disparity compressed turnover from 1.98x to 1.45x daily, indicating that the same pool of capital is now rotating more slowly and trading has thinned considerably.
The October 2025 market disruption appeared to reset the competitive landscape, with several previously dominant protocols failing to recapture their pre-crash activity levels. Hyperliquid's open interest share fell dramatically from 89% in mid-July 2025 to 49% by early February 2026, though it remained the largest. Of six protocols that averaged over $1 billion per day in the first period, none maintained that pace in the second; Lighter experienced the steepest decline at 27.3% of prior volume, while ApeX Omni held closest at 80.9%. Notably, GRVT bucked the trend with 166% growth, and several smaller protocols—Extended, StandX, and GMTrade—showed outsized gains in both volume and open interest.
What remains unclear is whether this thinning reflects structural reallocation toward fewer venues, temporary demand destruction, or consolidation among active traders. The concentration of growth in specific protocols suggests market bifurcation, but sustained engagement patterns across the sector have yet to stabilize at new equilibrium levels.