How to choose a perpetual contract platform? Zero trading fees vs. comprehensive comparison of deep liquidity

Perpetual Contracts DEX Market Enters a Phase of Specialized Competition, Hyperliquid Establishes Leadership with Deep Liquidity, Lighter Attracts High-Frequency Traders with Zero Fees, Extended Promotes Unified Margin to Maximize Capital Efficiency, and Variational Aggregates Liquidity via RFQ Mode and Returns Losses. The market is no longer a winner-takes-all scenario; instead, each platform is optimized for different needs.

The Perpetual Contract Market Is Not Zero-Sum

Trading perpetual contracts is not a team sport; you don’t need to pick sides. However, just five minutes browsing on CT can change your perspective. The extreme ideology mindset has already consumed most traders, weakening the advantage they could have gained through curiosity. If you post about trying new perpetual contract platforms, responses are often rooted in extremism rather than curiosity.

Ironically, those attacked are usually just seeking better trading strategies, but in the mindset of extremists, exploration equals betrayal. In the perpetual contract market, there are no absolute winners and losers as extremists imagine. Multiple platforms can coexist and profit because they serve different needs—sometimes catering to different traders, sometimes serving the same trader at different times.

But among traders, there are winners and losers, and the distinction lies in whether they are result-oriented, not which platform they use. To understand the landscape of perpetual contracts, one must abandon the winner-takes-all mindset. These platforms focus on specific niches rather than engaging in a life-and-death fight.

Hyperliquid: The Ruler of Deep Liquidity

Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange operating on its self-developed Layer-1 blockchain HyperEVM, designed for high performance and scalability. Hyperliquid adopts a fully on-chain order book model, solving the limitations of AMMs and off-chain matching engines. HyperBFT consensus mechanism enables the network to process up to 200,000 orders per second with about 0.2 seconds latency.

The real success of Hyperliquid lies in creating the most liquid platform on the market. Liquidity is a core element of financial markets, and Hyperliquid has built the infrastructure to maintain this liquidity. The platform offers deep order books covering major trading pairs and dozens of perpetual markets, which is crucial for traders managing diversified portfolios or holding large positions.

Three Core Advantages of Hyperliquid

Deep Liquidity: Slippage for positions of 500,000 BTC is far lower than competitors, suitable for large trades

Unified Ecosystem: HyperEVM allows developers to deploy dApps and access exchange liquidity natively

Builder Codes: Developers can earn trading fee shares by routing trades for users

Hyperliquid’s fee structure is tiered based on 14-day trading volume, with taker and maker fees decreasing as volume increases. The platform does not have designated market makers or latency advantages, welcoming anyone to participate in market making. Additionally, Hyperliquid Vaults enable users to earn profits by following trading strategies, with vault managers earning 10% of profits as rewards.

Lighter: The Pursuit of Zero Fees

Lighter is a decentralized exchange built on Ethereum using a custom zero-knowledge proof aggregation. It generates cryptographic proofs for all operations via customized zk circuits, with final settlement on the Ethereum blockchain. This approach allows the platform to process tens of thousands of orders per second with millisecond latency, while ensuring each transaction is provably fair and on-chain verifiable.

Lighter stands out for its relentless cost minimization. Its zero-fee model can determine the profitability of trading strategies for high-volume traders. With $10 million monthly trading volume, even compared to platforms charging 0.03%-0.05% fees, traders can save thousands of dollars monthly, amounting to tens of thousands annually.

Lighter can offer retail users zero trading fees, not as a short-term subsidy, but due to its multi-layered aggregation structure. The proof process is like a data compression pipeline: the prover generates parallel proofs for thousands of small trades, the system collects hundreds of thousands of sub-proofs and compresses them into a single batch proof, which the Ethereum smart contract only needs to verify once. The economic consequence is that the marginal cost of verifying additional transactions on the network approaches zero.

Lighter’s LLP liquidity pool allows users to contribute liquidity and earn yields based on trading activity. The LLP token can be used within the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem and combined with protocols like Aave.

Extended: The Capital Efficiency Revolution with Unified Margin

Extended is a decentralized exchange developed by the former Revolut team, with a unique product vision centered on unified margin. Its goal is to create a comprehensive trading experience, integrating perpetuals, spot, and lending markets into a single margin system. Extended’s design is trustless, giving users full control over their funds, all assets are custodyed in Starknet smart contracts.

What makes Extended unique is its vault system, which allows traders to earn income while trading. Through Extended Vault Shares (XVS), depositors can earn about 15% annualized base yield plus additional returns based on trading activity. The platform allows using XVS as collateral, up to 90% of equity, enabling traders to leverage while earning passive income.

For traders holding large amounts of capital on the platform, this dual use of collateral creates capital efficiency unavailable on traditional platforms. Extended currently charges no trading fees for standard accounts and supports Builder Codes, allowing developers to earn commissions from routed trades.

Variational: Liquidity Aggregator with RFQ Mode

Variational is a peer-to-peer trading protocol that operates very differently from traditional DEXs. Instead of an order book, it uses an RFQ (Request For Quote) model. The protocol offers zero trading fees on over 500 markets and redistributes revenue through loss refunds and trading rebates.

The core of Variational is the All-Route Liquidity Provider (OLP), which aggregates liquidity from CEXs, DEXs, DeFi protocols, and OTC markets. OLP is the first vault to run complex market-making strategies and act as the sole counterparty for user trades. When a user requests a quote, OLP searches across the entire liquidity spectrum for competitive prices.

Dual Reward Mechanism of Variational

Loss Refunds: When closing a losing position, there’s a chance to get an immediate full refund, with probability depending on reward tier, from 0% to 5%

Trade Rebates: Active traders can earn rebates based on trading volume and enjoy spread discounts

With over 500 markets, Variational offers the broadest coverage among decentralized exchanges. Its automated onboarding engine allows new assets to go live within hours by leveraging OLP-aggregated liquidity. For traders seeking downside protection, access to emerging markets, and rewards based on activity, Variational’s model meets these unique needs.

How to Choose the Right Perpetual Contract Platform for You

Differentiation is key to paradigm shifts. Hyperliquid represents a paradigm shift by combining deep unified liquidity, fully on-chain order books, and CEX-level performance on its dedicated L1 server. Lighter’s uniqueness lies in a very simple decision: zero trading fees. Variational takes a completely different approach, adopting an RFQ-based aggregator model that abstracts liquidity across various trading venues.

If you’re browsing a perpetual contract DEX that looks similar—same order book, similar value propositions, no tokens before, same incentive strategies—you are probably already missing the best timing. The market saturation phase has arrived; protecting your funds is the best choice.