$HYPE Soaring 45% within the week, an article analyzing the current Perp DEX market landscape—who is the biggest winner?

Recently, the performance of decentralized perpetual contract exchanges has shown divergence. According to Gate Market data, the leading Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE surged strongly by 45.73% over the past week, reaching $32.19 as of January 29, 2026, with a market capitalization of $7.67 billion. Meanwhile, Lighter, known for zero fees, saw its token LIT increase only modestly by 2.21%, currently trading at $1.8.

This difference in price performance reflects the current shift in the Perp DEX market from homogeneous competition to specialized survival. The market has clearly segmented into several core tracks, which are not mutually exclusive but serve different trader needs.

Market Status: Evolution of the Landscape from Price Divergence

The Perp DEX market has moved beyond the initial chaotic imitation phase. The contrasting price trends of $HYPE and $LIT indicate that investors are now voting with their capital, carefully evaluating the intrinsic value and sustainable development models of different platforms.

As of January 29, 2026, HYPE, leveraging its leading position as a high-performance Layer-1 infrastructure, has a market cap approaching $7.7 billion, demonstrating strong market recognition. LIT, as a vertical challenger, with a market cap of $451 million, validates the effectiveness of its “zero trading fee” single-point breakthrough strategy. This divergence suggests that a mature market pattern of multi-faceted coexistence, attracting specific user groups through unique advantages, is forming.

Four Core Tracks: Exemplars of Professional Survival

The current Perp DEX market has seen several representative players establishing themselves with distinctly different value propositions.

Hyperliquid: Paradigm of High-Performance Layer-1 and Deep Liquidity

Hyperliquid’s success lies in redefining standards: built on its self-developed HyperEVM Layer-1, it features a fully on-chain order book, achieving exchange-level performance (200,000 orders per second, 0.2-second latency).

Its core moat is unparalleled liquidity depth, making it the preferred choice for large trades and institutional-level execution. The recent strong performance of $HYPE largely reflects market confidence in its role as a core trading infrastructure. Its dual-chain architecture (HyperCore + HyperEVM) not only supports trading but also aims to build a thriving derivatives ecosystem.

Lighter: Structural Disruptor with Zero Trading Fees

Lighter adopts the most extreme user value proposition: offering zero trading fees for all users. This is not just marketing subsidy but a structural cost advantage enabled by its Multi-layer Aggregation architecture based on zero-knowledge proof technology.

This technology aggregates proof of massive transactions for a single verification, bringing the marginal verification cost of each transaction close to zero. For high-frequency traders and fee-sensitive users, this directly translates into higher net profits. The relatively stable price of $LIT reflects market recognition of its clear business model and ongoing ability to attract specific user groups.

Lighter’s native token LIT completed its TGE at the end of 2025 and underwent large-scale airdrops. As of the end of January 2026, LIT’s price is about $1.8, with a circulating supply of 250 million tokens, a total supply of 1 billion tokens, and a market cap of approximately $452 million, accounting for 25% of the fully diluted market cap. In the past 24 hours, LIT’s price fell 6.48%, but over the past 7 days, it recorded a slight increase of +2.21%; over 30 days and a year, it declined about 31.76%. In 2026, the average price of LIT is expected to be around $1.8, fluctuating between $1.26 and $1.98; by 2031, the price could reach $3.39, representing a potential return of +52% from the current price.

Variational: Innovative Aggregator with RFQ Mode and Profit Sharing

Variational has completely reshaped its business model. It charges no trading fees but profits from the bid-ask spread (about 4-6 basis points) by aggregating liquidity from its internal market maker (OLP).

Its revolutionary aspect is returning a portion of profits to users in the form of “loss refunds.” When users close positions at a loss, they have the chance to receive a full refund. This mechanism creates strong user stickiness and supports over 500 assets listed, making it one of the most comprehensive Perp DEX platforms.

Extended: Pioneer in Unified Margin and Capital Efficiency

Built by the former Revolut team, Extended’s core is to create a unified margin account across perpetual contracts, spot, and lending. All user assets share a single margin pool, greatly improving capital efficiency.

Its Vault system allows users to deposit assets to earn basic yields (about 15% APR) and use these interest-bearing assets as collateral for leveraged trading, achieving a “dual benefit” of earning yields while trading, thus enhancing capital efficiency.

Key Dimension Comparison: How to Choose Your Main Battlefield?

Different platforms serve different core needs. The following comparison reveals key distinctions:

Outlook: No Ultimate Winner, Only Continuous Specialization

The future of the Perp DEX market is not a “winner-takes-all” ultimate showdown.

The strength of HYPE and the steady rise of LIT reveal a trend: the long-term evolution of the market will be diversified and specialized. As self-custody needs grow and trading strategies become more complex, future winners will be those projects that can continuously build irreplaceable, unique value within their chosen niche.

For traders, understanding the core advantages of different platforms and aligning them with their trading strategies (such as whether they trade frequently in large volumes, focus on long-tail assets, or are highly cost-conscious) is far more meaningful than debating “who is the biggest winner.” The true prosperity of the market is built on such diverse and professional specialization.