Cheapest perp DEX, live all-in cost from $1k to $1M on ETH, BTC and SOL
Trading| Provider | All-in cost | All-in at $100k | All-in at $1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| dYdX | 0.072% | 0.095% | 0.12% |
| Lighter | 0.0022% | 0.011% | 0.025% |
dYdX leads on 6 of 15 shared benchmarks, Lighter on 9. dYdX wins on Cheapest perp venue to hold a position, live funding normalized (0.82 bps vs 2.84 bps), Perp DEX cost invariance (2.46x vs 5.66x), Perp DEX mark price fidelity (0.020% vs 0.035%), Perp DEX capital efficiency (0.670 vs 0.276). Lighter wins on Cheapest perp DEX, live all-in cost from $1k to $1M on ETH, BTC and SOL (0.0022% vs 0.072%), Perp DEX volume share, live 24h notional ranked ($1.52B vs $45.52M), Perp DEX funding stability, 24h stddev of ETH funding ranked (0.0018% vs 0.036%), Perp DEX execution quality (0.0069% vs 0.069%). Data as of 2026-10-06 UTC.
Perp DEX on the dYdX Chain, a Cosmos SDK appchain. Orderbook with off-chain matching and onchain settlement, validators propagate orders via the mempool.
Onchain perp DEX with a fully onchain orderbook on a zkSync rollup. ZK proofs verify matching, no off-chain sequencer for trade execution.
Perpetual notional per closed UTC day, the DeFiLlama day buckets, read from each venue's own data. Ribbon under the bars marks which venue printed more that day.
7d lead
Lighter
$309M vs $13.03B
30d lead
Lighter
$1.22B vs $51.84B
Days led, last 30
0 / 30
dYdX / Lighter
Current streak
90 days
Lighter since Jul 8, 2026
UTC days, one side per trade
dYdX volume ÷ Lighter volume, week by week
The ratio of the two venues' seven-day perp volume, in percent; a window is shown only when both sides have every day closed. 100% is parity. The dashed line is the median of the weeks shown; the last window is the 7d tile above.
2.4% · week to 5 Oct · median 5.0%
dYdX ÷ Lighter, seven-day windows ending on the last closed day
29 Sep to 5 Oct
| dYdX ÷ Lighter | 2.4% |
| vs median | -2.6pt |
| = dYdX volume | $308.7M |
| ÷ Lighter volume | $13.03B |
| Window | dYdX | Lighter | dYdX / Lighter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last closed day (Oct 5, 2026) | $32.2M | $2.13B | 2% |
| Last 7 days | $309M | $13.03B | 2% |
| Last 30 days | $1.22B | $51.84B | 2% |
Sources: dYdX, dYdX v4 indexer 1DAY candles usdVolume summed over all perpetual markets. Lighter, Lighter 1d candles quote volume summed over perp markets (market_id < 2048), zkLighter mainnet + Robinhood chain deployment. Days where either venue has not closed are left blank rather than counted as zero. Last closed day common to both: Oct 5, 2026. Methodology and every venue on bench 266.
| Provider | All-in cost | All-in at $100k | All-in at $1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| dYdX | 0.072% | 0.095% | 0.12% |
| Lighter | 0.0022% | 0.011% | 0.025% |
dYdX
Leads0.82 bps
Lighter
Trails2.84 bps
Funding is signed. Positive means longs pay shorts, negative means longs get paid to hold. Venues settle on different native periods (hourly on Hyperliquid, dYdX, Lighter, Extended, Pacifica, Ondo, Vest, StandX and ApeX, every 4h on edgeX, every 8h on Kalshi, Aster and the CEX books); every figure is normalized from the venue's own quoted rate and interval before ranking. Funding is only the holding cost. Opening costs (taker fee, spread, impact) are the companion bench perp-fees.
dYdX
Trails$45.52M
Lighter
Leads$1.52B
dYdX
Trails0.036 %
Lighter
Leads0.0018 %
Ranked only with 24 hours of funding history (288 samples) and a stddev above zero: a young listing, or a venue whose rate has not moved since listing (Ondo Perps at launch, Polymarket in July), reads artificially stable and shows as Provisional, never as the leader. Stability is not directionality: a persistently positive but tight band ranks above a rate that flips every settlement.
dYdX
Trails0.069 %
Lighter
Leads0.0069 %
Per chain
| Chain | dYdX | Lighter |
|---|---|---|
| ETH | 0.069% | 0.0069% |
| BTC | 0.13% | 0.0031% |
| SOL | 0.095% | 0.013% |
dYdX
Trails73
Lighter
Leads211
| Provider | Cost slope ($1M / $1k) | $1M fill rate |
|---|---|---|
| dYdX | 2.46x | 100.0% |
| Lighter | 5.66x | 100.0% |
dYdX
Leads0.020 %
Lighter
Trails0.035 %
Per chain
| Chain | dYdX | Lighter |
|---|---|---|
| ETH | 0.020% | 0.035% |
| BTC | 0.020% | 0.036% |
| SOL | 0.021% | 0.041% |
dYdX
Trails1,102
Lighter
Leads1,194
This benchmark counts recorded incidents only. Absence from the registry does not prove a protocol is exploit-free: it means no incident matching the criteria (direct theft or loss of user funds via a security vulnerability) has been documented in the tracked sources as of the registry timestamp shown on each row. The registry is human-curated and updated when a new incident is confirmed. The registry date and source links are embedded in the harness.
dYdX
Trails2
Lighter
Leads38
Counts reflect each venue's live market catalog at query time, mainnet only. The asset class comes from the venue's own metadata where it publishes one; Hyperliquid HIP-3 dexes and dYdX publish none, so their symbols are matched against the crypto markets the other venues list and a fixed table of forex, commodity and index names. Tokenized gold (PAXG, XAUT) is a crypto token and is not counted. A market counts once whether it trades 24/7 or only during exchange hours.
dYdX
Leads0.670
Lighter
Trails0.276
TVL from DefiLlama /protocol/{slug} currentChainTvls, excluding staking and pool2 categories. Market count from each venue's native API (same source as the perp-active-markets bench). The ratio reflects architectural choices, not absolute liquidity: a high ratio means the venue can list many markets cheaply, not that each market has deep liquidity. Compare with perp-volume-share for the liquidity angle.
dYdX
Leads41.9x
Lighter
Trails70.5x
P/E = fully diluted valuation (CoinGecko) divided by annualized protocol revenue (DeFiLlama dailyRevenue, 30-day trailing average x365). Protocol revenue = fees accruing to the treasury or token holders, not total user fees. Tokens without a CoinGecko listing show no P/E. FDV reflects total supply at current price, not circulating supply; tokens with large unvested allocations will show inflated FDV-based P/E. Updated hourly.
| Provider | P/F ratio | FDV / fees | P/S | Fees 30d | Revenue 30d | Float | Open interest | Fees / OI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dYdX | 37.0x | 41.9x | 37.0x | $270.5K | $270.5K | 88.3% | $40.21M | 0.082x |
| Lighter | 14.9x | 59.6x | 17.6x | $5.23M | $4.41M | 25.0% | $604.31M | 0.105x |
P/F = circulating market cap (CoinGecko) / annualized fees (DeFiLlama dailyFees, trailing 30d x 365/30), on the DeFiLlama parent the token accrues from. Fees include the share paid to liquidity providers; P/S uses protocol revenue only. Low-float tokens show a much higher FDV/F than P/F. Pre-TGE venues are listed unranked with fees and OI, no ratio. A low multiple is not a recommendation.
| Provider | Daily perp volume | Volume 30d | Share 30d |
|---|---|---|---|
| dYdX | $32.17M | $1.22B | 0.33% |
| Lighter | $2.13B | $51.84B | 14.1% |
Volume is self-reported by each venue's public data surface and counted per UTC day, one side of each trade. Perimeters differ slightly per venue and are stated in the ledger notes. A closed day can be restated by a venue for one to two days; the harness re-reads the last three days every hour. Not a measure of organic flow: incentive programs and wash trading inflate notional on every venue.
dYdX
Leads0.986x
Lighter
Trails2.51x
The ratio is a screen, not a verdict. Both terms are the venue's own figures (24h volume and open interest as each API reports them, in USD), so a venue that counts both legs of a fill moves its ratio without changing anything real. A very low ratio (Ostium, 0.2x) means positions held for days on thin daily volume; a very high one (Kalshi, above 40x) means a day of trading dwarfs what stays open. The bands in the methodology say what each range usually means.
dYdX and Lighter are compared on 15 shared OpenChainBench benchmarks. dYdX leads on Cheapest perp venue to hold a position, live funding normalized. Lighter leads on Cheapest perp DEX, live all-in cost from $1k to $1M on ETH, BTC and SOL. See the live table on this page for every metric.
On the Cheapest perp venue to hold a position, live funding normalized benchmark, dYdX leads at 0.82 bps versus Lighter at 2.84 bps. Live measurement is updated continuously by the OpenChainBench harness.
On the Cheapest perp DEX, live all-in cost from $1k to $1M on ETH, BTC and SOL benchmark, Lighter leads at 0.0022% versus dYdX at 0.072%. Live measurement is updated continuously by the OpenChainBench harness.
Every benchmark on this page uses the same open methodology, published at https://openchainbench.com/methodology. Data is CC-BY-4.0. Measurement harnesses are MIT-licensed.
Auto-generated pairs require: both providers in the same benchmark for seven consecutive days, at least 1000 samples per provider, observable third-party search demand, and a public /products/[slug] page on OCB. Editorially curated pairs (like this one) may publish early when search demand is high and data is accruing; panels with fewer than 100 samples are shown as provisional. The full pair ledger is versioned in the public repo.