Perpetual Futures Trading on CEXs Drops to $4T, Hitting 31-Month Record Low
Trading volume for perpetual futures contracts on centralized crypto exchanges has reached its lowest point in 31 months, with decentralized exchange perpetuals also approaching yearly lows.
Trading volume for cryptocurrency perpetual futures on centralized exchanges (CEXs) dropped to $4 trillion during July, representing the lowest level recorded in 31 months since December 2023.
According to analytics platform CryptoRank in a Friday X post, Binance dominated centralized exchanges with $1.4 trillion in perpetual futures trading volume for the month, while OKX reported $607 billion and Bybit recorded $300 billion.
After experiencing a brief rebound during the April through June period, perpetual futures volumes declined throughout July across all primary trading venues.
This 31-month trough in perpetual futures trading activity coincided with a 23.6% drop in daily spot cryptocurrency trading volume throughout July, decreasing from $17.8 billion on July 1 to $13.6 billion by July 31, based on data from analytics provider Coinglass.
Perps volume on DEXs nears one-year low
Trading volume for perpetual contracts on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) declined to $531 billion throughout July, marking the lowest level recorded since June 2025 and representing a 21% decrease compared to the $676 billion recorded in June 2026, based on information from data aggregator DefiLlama.
Trading volume for perpetuals on decentralized exchanges has maintained a downward trajectory since reaching $1.36 trillion in October 2025.
Open interest across decentralized exchanges has similarly decreased to $17.9 billion during July, down from its September 2025 peak of $19.4 billion. Open interest represents the aggregate value of outstanding, unsettled contracts and serves as an indicator of whether fresh capital is flowing into or leaving the market.
Hyperliquid emerged as the top-performing DEX with $199 billion in documented trading volume during the past 30 days. An increasing proportion of Hyperliquid's trading volume has originated from tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), which represented 32% of Hyperliquid's second-quarter trading activity and contributed 6.6% of the protocol's $169 million in quarterly revenue.
For the first time, tokenized assets became Hyperliquid's dominant trading category last month, with RWAs comprising 52% of its aggregate weekly trading volume during the period spanning July 13 through July 19.