An Analysis of The On-Chain Perpetual Swap Ecosystem

Perpetual swaps (perps) are one of the most traded products in the cryptocurrency space, with trading volume dominated by centralized exchanges (CEX) due to better liquidity and lower transaction fees. As decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are working to close the gap in those aspects, self-custody is the feature that has garnered the most attention towards perps DEXs.

This piece will compare perps DEXs with one another in order to identify their pros and cons as well as notable differentiators. There are 3 main mechanisms that on-chain perps DEXs utilize: order books, AMM-based pools and oracle-based pools.