A review of 9 Perp DEX projects that are expected to airdrop in 2026.

Author: fiyalkin, Crypto KOL

Compiled by: Felix, PANews

Recently, crypto KOL fiyalkin summarized a list of Perp DEX projects that may conduct token issuance in 2026, including brief introductions, key data, and more. These projects are all in the early stages of development and have not yet issued tokens. Below are the details.

1. Variational

Variational is a decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) derivatives trading protocol built on Arbitrum, focusing on on-chain trading, settlement, and clearing of perpetual contracts, options, futures, and other broad derivatives.

Several applications have been developed based on the Variational protocol, including Omni for simple perpetual contract trading and Pro for advanced traders and institutions.

Unique technology stack:

All position trades have zero fees, with deposits and withdrawals incurring only a $0.1 fee.
Loss refund: Users have a 2-4% chance of receiving a full loss refund immediately when closing a losing trade on the Omni platform.
Extensive market coverage: Omni supports emerging markets such as RWA and volatility (a total of 485 markets).
Ample liquidity: Omni's liquidity management system integrates liquidity from CEX, DEX, DeFi, and OTC channels.

The project's points program launched less than a month ago. Early traders have shared 3 million points, with an additional 150,000 points distributed weekly. Currently, the circulating points are approximately 3.3 million, considering that points programs typically last about six months, this is still a very early stage.

The current open interest (OI) of the Variational protocol is $670 million; daily trading volume is $1.5 billion; and there are 12,000 weekly traders.

Additionally, Variational raised $11.8 million from institutions such as Coinbase, Dragonfly, and Bain Capital Ventures between 2024 and 2025.

2. Ethereal

The Perp DEX platform Ethereal is deeply integrated with Ethena Labs' synthetic dollar USDe, aiming to build a "one-stop DeFi application" centered around USDe.

Moreover, Ethereal is the first DEX where margin can earn daily yields, allowing users' margins to generate returns even while holding open positions, thus compounding returns on every trade.

Ethereal is deployed as an EVM application chain with the following configuration:

Settlement via Arbitrum One
Arbitrum execution environment
Celestia data availability

Currently, Ethereal's open positions amount to $45 million, with a daily trading volume of approximately $80 million and a total of 8,000 traders.

3. Hibachi

Hibachi is a privacy-focused trading platform. It secured $5 million in seed funding from Dragonfly, Electric Capital, and Echo in March 2025. Team members come from Citadel, Tower Research, IMC, Meta, Google, Hashflow, and more.

Hibachi has now launched social features and upgraded chart annotation capabilities. Since the beta release in June last year, it has accumulated over $6.7 billion in trading volume, with a daily trading volume of $7 million, open interest (OI) of approximately $1.5 million, and over 2,000 daily active traders. It has launched a new points system, and tokens have not yet been issued.

4. Cascade

Cascade is a new type of broker operating 24/7, offering perpetual markets covering cryptocurrencies, U.S. stocks, and private assets, with zero trading fees. Currently, some invited depositors have access to the platform, which is expected to open to the public in early 2026. The platform will initially offer over 10 perpetual markets, with plans to gradually expand the product lineup.

The project has raised $15 million from investors including Polychain Capital, Variant, Coinbase Ventures, and Archetype, and has established partnerships with Arbitrum, Base, Chainlink, and Pyth Network.

5. Pacifica

The Perp DEX platform Pacifica is built on Solana, aiming to combine the speed of CEX with the transparency and non-custodial security of DeFi. Pacifica was established in January last year, fully self-funded, without venture capital. Team members come from Binance, FTX, Coinbase, NFTperp, as well as financial institutions like Jane Street and Fidelity, and AI companies like OpenAI and DeepMind.

Currently, Pacifica's open interest (OI) is approximately $71 million, with a daily trading volume of $600 million and a total of 33,000 traders.

6. Extended

Extended is a Perp DEX created by the former Revolut team, aiming to integrate cross-asset collateral, unified margin, Perp, spot, and lending into one application. In addition to cryptocurrencies, Extended also offers RWA/TradFi markets such as euros and the S&P 500 index, using USDC as collateral.

Extended has launched on the Ethereum L2 network Starknet mainnet, supporting over 50 trading pairs and up to 100x leverage, with open interest (OI) of approximately $200 million, daily trading volume of about $1.5 billion, and 4,200 daily active users.

Currently, Extended has completed $6.5 million in funding, with investors including Tioga Capital, Semantic Ventures, and StarkWare.

7. Nado

Nado is a high-performance central limit order book (CLOB) DEX platform built on Ink L2 (an EVM-compatible L2 network launched by Kraken), developed by the former Kraken team, combining CEX-level speed with DeFi non-custodial security, providing a unified trading experience for spot, perpetual contracts, and money markets.

Key features of Nado:

Trade spot and perpetual contract markets: Supports mainstream currencies like BTC and ETH, with perpetual contracts offering up to 20x leverage.
Nado engine: The core of Nado is a high-performance off-chain sequencer and on-chain risk engine, settling through Ink L2. New trades enter the order book with a latency of 5-15 milliseconds and are settled in batches on-chain.
Unified margin: A unified margin account uses the entire user portfolio as collateral for spot, perpetual contracts, and money markets.
Money market: Deposits automatically earn yields, using flexible collateral like wETH or USDT0 for margin lending, and easily achieving rapid cycle positions through spot margin trading.
Low fees: Taker fees as low as 1.5 basis points, maker rebates up to -0.8 basis points, and tiered increases based on trading volume. The more you trade, the lower the fees.

Currently, Nado's open interest (OI) is approximately $90 million, with a daily trading volume of $500 million and around 2,000 daily traders.

8. TradeXYZ

TradeXYZ is a Perp trading platform focused on RWA and traditional financial assets, built on the HIP-3 protocol of Hyperliquid L1, developed by the Unit.xyz team, aiming to achieve "trade any asset anytime, anywhere" in a 24/7 global capital market.

The maximum leverage supported is as follows:

Silver: Up to 20x
XYZ100 (tracking Nasdaq futures): Up to 25x
Euro/USD & USD/JPY: Up to 50x

Currently, TradeXYZ's open interest (OI) is approximately $221 million, with a daily trading volume of about $570 million.

9. Reya

The Reya trading platform is an on-chain exchange built on Ethereum, providing institutional-level execution. It has secured $19 million in funding from institutions such as Robot Ventures, Coinbase, and CoinList.

Reya is based on Ethereum and employs innovative, trading-specific ZK Rollup technology:

Speed: Transaction execution time is less than 1 millisecond.
Security: Achieves verifiable order execution and settlement through ZK-Proofs, with executed trades settled on Ethereum.
Reliability: No single point of failure, using Rollup design with multiple rotating L2 nodes.

Currently, Reya's open interest (OI) is approximately $22 million, with a daily trading volume of $550 million and a total of 7,200 traders.

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