Important points
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The new wave of DEX wars has moved from token incentives to a focus on speed, leverage, and sustainable infrastructure.
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Hyperliquid continues to lead the market with over $300 billion in monthly trading volume, strong liquidity, and increasing adoption by institutional investors.
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Aster’s growth is supported by airdrops, Binance-backed credibility, and leverage that attracts professional traders.
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Lighter is gaining momentum through Ethereum’s Layer 2 speed, zero-fee trading model, and unique points-based yield farming system.
Platforms like SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, and Curve leveraged yield farming and governance token incentives to attract liquidity. This approach facilitated rapid capital formation and brought billions of dollars on-chain in a short period of time.
These early battles were about who could attract the most Total Value Locked (TVL) and traders through token incentives, rather than speed, leverage, or institutional-level infrastructure. In the end, Uniswap took the lead. The strategies the company established, including liquidity mining, airdrops, and tokenized participation, became the foundation for the more sophisticated decentralized exchange (DEX) wars that are now being played out permanently.
Inside the DEX liquidity wars
Hyperliquid, a DEX built on a proprietary high-performance blockchain infrastructure, has seen significant growth in 2025. The exchange processed over $300 billion in trading volume around mid-2025, with daily trading volume sometimes approaching $17 billion. Due to its abundant liquidity and quick execution, it has gained strong traction among active professional traders.
One of the key drivers behind Hyperliquid’s strong growth was its ability to drive liquidity and user activity through its points-based rewards program. This effort eventually led to a large-scale airdrop.
In total, 27.5% of the token supply was distributed to 94,000 addresses, rewarding early active participants. What started as a way to get more people to transact has since become one of the most valuable token distributions in recent cryptocurrency history. The value of this airdrop is currently estimated to be around $7 billion to $8 billion.
But rivals are quickly catching up.
Aster is a fast-growing DEX built on the BNB smart chain and has established itself as one of Hyperliquid’s main competitors. Reported trading volumes soared to tens of billions of dollars on some days, sometimes even surpassing HyperLiquid’s numbers. The project’s connection with Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has also attracted significant attention from the market.
Meanwhile, Reiter, a new exchange built on the Ethereum rollup, reports daily trading volume of over $8 billion.
Together, these challengers are turning what was once a commanding lead for Hyperliquid into a three-way battle for market share.
Calder White, chief technology officer of Vigil Labs, a Silicon Valley startup that recently raised $5.7 million to apply AI to understanding and trading crypto markets, says the apparent surge has very different foundations for each platform.
“Our system shows that Aster’s growth is very story-driven, with traders recycling capital and increasing volume, while Hyperliquid continues to carry the most organic flow from serious participants. Both Aster and Lighter rely on the same point-to-airdrop strategy to bootstrap liquidity and activity to compete with Hyperliquid for market share,” White said.
Aster makes a high-stakes play for DEX superiority
Aster’s momentum comes from its close relationship with CZ, which is currently advising on the project. His involvement led many online to refer to Aster as “Binance’s DEX.” The exchange introduced tokenized stocks, allowing users to trade key assets on-chain with up to 1,000x leverage. It also plans to launch its own layer 1 blockchain.
This combination makes Aster one of the boldest experiments in DEX design to date.
Driving this rise is Aster’s massive airdrop program that rewards users who generate trading activity. Season 2 distributed 320 million Aster tokens worth approximately $600 million and ended on October 5, 2025.
The incentive model is already reflected in strong activity. Astor recently generated over $20 million in 24-hour fees, ranking as one of the top earners in decentralized finance (DeFi). Speculation is also mounting that the team may be using some of its proceeds to buy back tokens. If true, the move could further increase Aster’s token value and help sustain trader interest beyond the airdrop period.
Some participants stand to earn large rewards, ranging from thousands of dollars to seven-figure payouts for the most active traders. The scale of these incentives has resulted in significant trading volume increases across the platform, but it remains to be seen whether users will continue trading after the rewards are reduced.
Airdrops and exclusivity fuel the rise of writers
Lighter has quickly established itself as one of the most technically ambitious stacks in DeFi. Built on a custom Ethereum Layer 2 with zero-knowledge circuitry, it supports sub-5ms matching delay. The goal is to approach the speed of Centralized Exchange (CEX). The platform offers zero trading fees for retail users, but charges a premium for API and institutional flows.
Lighter is driving rapid growth through its Lighter Liquidity Pool (LLP) program, making it one of the most attractive revenue opportunities in DeFi. The pool currently offers an annual percentage yield (APY) of approximately 60% on deposits over $400 million. Access to LLP is linked to a user’s points balance, with more active traders being given higher allocation limits.
Writer’s zero-commission model and point system have heightened speculation among traders. Since its inception, the exchange has recorded high trading volumes, sometimes rivaling that of HyperLiquid. Currently, much of the excitement is centered around expectations for the upcoming token launch, which is widely rumored to take place later this year.
Although there are no tokens yet, the over-the-counter market for Writer Points is already thriving, with points selling for tens of dollars each. Prices rose from $39 to more than $60, with one trader reportedly spending $1 million at $41 each.
One of the easiest ways to assess the value of a perpetual DEX is to look at its open interest (OI), which represents the total value of all trades still open on the platform. The higher the OI, the more real money is left in the position. For example, Hyperliquid’s $13.2 billion OI supports a circulating market capitalization of approximately $15.2 billion.
Reiter currently holds approximately $2.1 billion in OI. Assuming around 15%-20% of the tokens are unlocked at token launch, this would mean a circulating market cap of around $1 billion to $1.1 billion and a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of close to $5 billion to $5.5 billion. There are approximately 12 million points associated with that first float, making each point worth approximately $83 to $100.
If 15% to 20% of the supply is allocated to the community, it would represent an airdrop worth between $750 million and $1.1 billion for users, potentially making it one of the most significant token distributions in DeFi since Hyperliquid’s drop.
Institutional investor liquidity enters the discussion
A growing subplot in this battle is the gradual but notable entry of institutional liquidity. Funds that once avoided on-chain derivatives due to slippage, latency, and compliance concerns are now allocating test funds to these platforms.
Hyperliquid’s speed-focused, transparent design has garnered increased interest from professional traders, and Aster’s Binance-related saga has garnered significant attention across the Asian trading community.
Lighter, with its sub-5ms execution speed and on-chain payment model, is attracting interest from prop trading firms seeking yield without counterparty risk. The next phase of the DEX wars may depend less on airdrops and more on which platform can provide the most reliable rail for serious capital.
Infrastructure vs. Narrative: Which Will Win in the Long Run?
Although competition between Lighter, Aster, and Hyperliquid continues to intensify, Hyperliquid continues to set the benchmark for on-chain derivatives, backed by unparalleled open interest, strong execution quality, and a growing institutional investor base.
Far from slowing down, the exchange stepped up its efforts, introducing HIP-3 to allow anyone to launch a PERP DEX on Hyperliquid’s rails, launching the USDH stablecoin, and quickly moving to a permanent list of rival tokens like ASTER to capture narrative-driven flows.
Hyperliquid has kept its community engaged through new reward mechanisms. Launched on September 28, 2025, Hypurr’s non-fungible token (NFT) collection quickly became popular, with the lowest price hovering around 1,200 HYPE (approximately $55,000 each). Strong demand for this collection has fueled speculation about possible future reward rounds and points program updates.
According to White, this divide among emerging DEXs shows how much incentives can move a market compared to how much infrastructure can stabilize a market.
“Hyperliquid is betting on execution and liquidity, but Aster and Reiter are showing how far incentives can extend the market,” he said.
“The real test is whether traders will stick around after the airdrop music fades.”