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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gains | 0.040% | 0.040% | 0.040% |
| Lighter | 0.0025% | 0.0049% | 0.0089% |
Gains leads on 8 of 12 shared benchmarks, Lighter on 4. Gains wins on Most tradable markets on a perp DEX, live count per venue (355 vs 211), Perp DEX cost invariance (1.000x vs 5.15x), Perp DEX mark price fidelity (0.023% vs 0.050%), Perp DEX security track record (1,770 vs 1,193). Lighter wins on Cheapest perp DEX, live all-in cost from $1k to $1M on ETH, BTC and SOL (0.0025% vs 0.040%), Perp DEX volume share, live 24h notional ranked ($1.28B vs $14.17M), Perp DEX daily volume 2026 ($2.13B vs $17.75M), Perp DEX volume to open interest (2.12x vs 5.53x). Data as of 2026-10-06 UTC.
Perp DEX on Polygon, Arbitrum, Base and Solana. Pool-based execution against the gToken vaults, oracle-priced trades with synthetic leverage.
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
$157M vs $13.03B
30d lead
Lighter
$2.06B vs $51.84B
Days led, last 30
0 / 30
Gains / Lighter
Current streak
90 days
Lighter since Jul 8, 2026
UTC days, one side per trade
Gains 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.
1.2% · week to 5 Oct · median 5.9%
Gains ÷ Lighter, seven-day windows ending on the last closed day
29 Sep to 5 Oct
| Gains ÷ Lighter | 1.2% |
| vs median | -4.7pt |
| = Gains volume | $156.6M |
| ÷ Lighter volume | $13.03B |
| Window | Gains | Lighter | Gains / Lighter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last closed day (Oct 5, 2026) | $17.8M | $2.13B | 1% |
| Last 7 days | $157M | $13.03B | 1% |
| Last 30 days | $2.06B | $51.84B | 4% |
Sources: Gains, Dune view dune.gains.result_g_trade_stats_defi_llama (the DeFiLlama adapter's source): Arbitrum, Polygon, Base, MegaETH; ApeChain not included. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gains | 0.040% | 0.040% | 0.040% |
| Lighter | 0.0025% | 0.0049% | 0.0089% |
Gains
Trails$14.17M
Lighter
Leads$1.28B
Gains
Leads355
Lighter
Trails211
| Provider | Cost slope ($1M / $1k) | $1M fill rate |
|---|---|---|
| Gains | 1.000x | 100.0% |
| Lighter | 5.15x | 100.0% |
Gains
Leads0.023 %
Lighter
Trails0.050 %
Per chain
| Chain | Gains | Lighter |
|---|---|---|
| ETH | 0.023% | 0.050% |
| BTC | 0.022% | 0.042% |
| SOL | 0.020% | 0.040% |
Gains
Leads1,770
Lighter
Trails1,193
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.
Gains
Leads109
Lighter
Trails38
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.
Gains
Leads40
Lighter
Trails0.275
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.
Gains
Leads1.298x
Lighter
Trails76.7x
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gains | 0.980x | 0.980x | 1.298x | $849.7K | $641.5K | 100.0% | $2.61M | 3.96x |
| Lighter | 16.2x | 64.7x | 19.2x | $5.13M | $4.32M | 25.0% | $606.06M | 0.103x |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gains | $17.75M | $2.06B | 0.56% |
| 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.
Gains
Trails5.53x
Lighter
Leads2.12x
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.
Gains and Lighter are compared on 12 shared OpenChainBench benchmarks. Gains leads on Most tradable markets on a perp DEX, live count per venue. 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 Most tradable markets on a perp DEX, live count per venue benchmark, Gains leads at 355 versus Lighter at 211. 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 0.0025% versus Gains at 0.040%. 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.