PerpDEX's Business Strategy and Future Landscape

On November 14th, members of the Lighter, Aster, and Helix teams jointly hosted an online roundtable discussion on the future landscape of the on-chain perpetual contract market. During the roundtable, the guests discussed the operational strategies, characteristics, and future plans of different PerpDEXs, and also shared their outlook on the development of the Perp market. Moderator: Tonight we will discuss a very important topic: the operational strategies and future landscape of PerpDEXs. We will focus on several core topics, such as the current structural challenges in the PerpDEX sector, on-chain Perp, and how to map on-chain finance to the real-world market. In addition, we will discuss how various projects address user growth, liquidity, and long-term user retention. Today's guests are: 1. Ken—Helix Core Contributor; 2. Amber—Aster BD Head; 3. Mr.block—Lighter Core Contributor. Moving on to today's first topic: What is the core advantage of the on-chain PerpDEX that is most difficult for competitors to replicate? Why? Aster BD Manager: This is a very interesting question. Looking at the essence of PerpDex's product, everyone is essentially building trading infrastructure, and liquidity is undoubtedly the most crucial element. PerpDEX's advantages are essentially the smoothness of trading and the depth of its liquidity pools. For Aster, we hope to excel in several areas. First, we employ an order book and a fully on-chain trading model, allowing users to choose according to their needs—do you want to execute complex strategies like a professional trader, or prefer simple, easy operations? For the latter, they can use Aster's easy-to-use trading mode with leverage up to 1001x. This is our first unique mechanism: providing two trading models so users can choose the appropriate product based on their desired experience. Second, we have an early focus on privacy. We launched a feature called "Hide Orders," which is very useful for many large traders who don't want their order information to be completely public. Of course, the hidden order book hasn't fully realized its potential yet, as our own public chain hasn't been officially launched. The next important direction is to launch a dedicated public chain for order book services. At that time, transaction information will be transparent and auditable while maintaining privacy. Whether you're a large investor or an ordinary user, if you don't want your positions or order information to be completely visible to others, you can trade while protecting your privacy, and the entire system will still be auditable. Therefore, allowing users to trade in a private environment is currently Aster's most significant differentiator and advantage compared to other PerpDEXs. Mr. Block Chris —— Lighter Core Contributor: If we only talk about technical differences, each has its unique aspects, such as the previously mentioned Dark Pool. But I believe the most crucial element is to look at each project's "DNA". Aster's DNA is Binance; without Binance, Aster wouldn't be as big as it is today. Hyperliquid's DNA is its supporting community. Lighter's DNA consists of Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital, as well as Haun Ventures and Robinhood. Therefore, when retail investors choose which PerpDex to participate in, besides the product itself, the most important thing is its DNA, which is also the biggest difference between these three DEXs. Another significant difference is whether or not a token has been issued. Currently, among the core players, Edgex and Lightner are the only ones that haven't issued their own tokens yet. Therefore, retail investors tend to favor platforms that haven't launched their own tokens when choosing "mining" targets. Current trading volume data may also be inflated because everyone is frantically inflating trading volume. In contrast, the data for Aster and Hyperliquid is more realistic because they have already gone through the stages of transaction mining and token issuance. Therefore, to truly predict who will ultimately win, I think we need to wait until June or July next year, considering changes in the market cycle, to see a clearer picture. I personally experienced the entire DeFi Summer, witnessing the competition among all DEXs at that time, including Uniswap, Balancer, Curve, and numerous Uniswap forks, such as Pancakeswap, etc. I feel that the competitive landscape of PerpDex now is similar to that of the DeFi Summer years ago. Hyperliquid succeeded, and everyone wanted to follow suit. If Hyperliquid hadn't succeeded, and Polymarket had taken off instead, then everyone here today might not be running PerpDex, but rather a prediction market. Therefore, this once again illustrates the importance of timing, location, and people.

Ken——HelixCore Contributor:

I am a core contributor to Helix, which is PerpDEX deployed on the Injective chain.

I am a core contributor to Helix, which is PerpDEX deployed on the Injective chain.

KenKenKenKen

Amber——Aster：

First, our mobile application is now available for download and use. Mobile has always been a key focus for us.

Second, we recently launched the AI ​​Arena campaign. Many developers and teams are already building various trading tools based on Aster, especially given the current focus on AI trading strategies.

Through AI Arena, we've partnered with ecosystem partners to select and introduce a batch of high-quality AI strategy tools, which users can now use for trading on the Aster platform. We hope that through such collaborations, we can continuously introduce more mature and excellent products from the ecosystem to traders. Thirdly, at the product level, our independent public chain is of paramount importance. It's important to note that this public chain is not a complete ecosystem chain, but rather designed specifically for the order book system. Our goal is to achieve a high-performance trading experience comparable to centralized trading platforms, while ensuring full transparency and verifiability of on-chain data. For traders, this means you can enjoy performance and smoothness comparable to CEXs while having complete control over your own data. This will be the core of our next step. Host Moonlight: Currently, a large number of traders still primarily use centralized trading platforms. However, as Amber emphasized, PerpDex's smoothness is now comparable to CEXs. So, what are the reasons that are prompting a wider range of users to shift to on-chain trading, or at least allocate a portion of their assets on-chain? I believe that for traders who are already accustomed to using CEXs for high-frequency trading, switching to Helix or other decentralized perpetual contract platforms means they can obtain fully self-custodied and transparent security without sacrificing their trading experience. All order placement, position updates, and liquidation related to perpetual contracts must be completed publicly on-chain. This is crucial because it means there is no "black box" matching process, no unseen internal counterparties, and no additional risks. Black swan risks that have existed in some centralized trading platforms or institutions in the past—such as unilaterally frozen withdrawals, platform service interruptions due to regulatory or compliance issues, or operational failures—even some large platforms have experienced similar situations—may be tolerable for spot trading, but for contract trading, such risks are completely unacceptable. Looking back at the market over the past year, it's not difficult to find relevant cases, whether it's hacker attacks or so-called "network outages," such cases are commonplace. Even if some platforms offer compensation afterward, the process is very lengthy and rarely covers all losses. For perpetual contract traders, a single spike in price can wipe out months or even years of accumulated profits. For high-frequency or heavy traders, these risks constitute a real, albeit invisible, counterparty risk. The core value of on-chain trading lies in solving this problem by eliminating single points of trust and single points of failure: users' assets are always kept in wallets they control, trading and settlement logic is clearly defined and publicly verifiable by smart contracts, and the platform cannot arbitrarily change users' positions or restrict asset withdrawals. Furthermore, airdrops and other benefit mechanisms within the on-chain ecosystem provide traders with additional returns that are difficult to obtain on centralized platforms. On Helix, users enjoy transparent and self-custodied security, and can also share in the potential returns from the growth of Helix and the entire Injective ecosystem. I believe that the combination of these two aspects—a trading experience comparable to CEXs and the unique security and profit opportunities on-chain—is the most attractive advantage of on-chain trading at present, and it is also the core reason and vision for encouraging everyone to gradually migrate to on-chain.

Amber——Aster：

Ken has already covered many core points, and I would like to add a few points on that basis:

First, from Aster's perspective, we are committed to providing an experience that is almost indistinguishable from centralized trading platforms. The logic behind this is clear: the trading process on CEXs has been highly optimized for user experience, and most users are already accustomed to it.

What we're doing is providing users with a one-stop, KYC-free on-chain trading platform without sacrificing this smoothness. We hope that users don't have to sacrifice trading efficiency when switching to on-chain. Secondly, why should users switch from centralized to decentralized exchanges? Besides the fundamental advantages of no KYC, self-custody of assets, free deposits and withdrawals, and trading transparency, another key point is the speed and flexibility of listing new assets. For centralized exchanges, listing new assets usually involves a lengthy and cumbersome review process. Decentralized exchanges are different—as we've seen, the reason why DEXs like Uniswap and PancakeSwap have seen continuous growth in trading volume and more and more users is precisely because they can list new assets much faster. The same applies to Aster. We continuously explore ways to accelerate the listing process of new assets, even enabling users to trade some assets on our platform before they are listed on centralized platforms. This is also one of the reasons why more and more users are starting to pay attention to and use on-chain perpetual contract platforms: you can access emerging assets earlier, and the earlier you participate, the greater the potential opportunities often are. Host Moonlight: In my opinion, the future trend is not necessarily a choice between "on-chain" or "centralized," but more likely a parallel development of both. More and more users will gradually migrate their financial exposure to on-chain. Taking myself as an example, when I first entered the field, I mainly used centralized trading platforms. However, after this cycle, I started trying decentralized platforms, and the experience was excellent. Now I use both. This may be a viable path for PerpDEX to achieve user growth. Since we're discussing growth paths, we must mention how to attract users. In the last cycle, many people achieved considerable profits by participating in airdrops, attracting a large number of users and even giving rise to professional studios and "airdrop hunters." However, users inevitably experience fatigue, especially when they encounter situations where they are "airdropped back." I'm curious, how do you, the experts, design airdrop mechanisms to avoid only attracting short-term airdrop hunters, and instead truly transform rewards and activities into long-term, high-quality, and highly loyal users? This is indeed a perennial topic in blockchain projects—how to ensure the fairness of airdrops and incentives. I would like to introduce Helix's current approach to incentive design from two aspects. First is the open liquidity incentive program based on the Injective blockchain. Anyone who provides liquidity on Helix through its liquidity pool bot can earn corresponding trading incentives. Users can view their available incentive amounts in real-time on Helix's liquidity rewards dashboard, based on the activity and market depth of the supported trading pairs. Secondly, Helix has also established its own points system, but it differs fundamentally from the common "get-rich-quick" model in the market. We employ a multi-round, continuously accumulating "hidden accumulation" mechanism, which shares several common characteristics: encouraging users to engage in real trading on Helix, maintain continuous interaction, and even if some perpetual trading positions are liquidated, users can still earn points as long as they remain active during market fluctuations. For Helix, genuine engagement is far more important than artificially inflated trading volume. Therefore, we haven't deliberately created overly quantifiable rules for boosting points. Overly simplistic rules can easily lead to strategic arbitrage, resulting in industrialized volume manipulation and monetization. While the data may appear impressive on the surface, it actually damages the long-term value of the product and ecosystem—users are merely "pretending to use the product," not truly retained. At Helix, we assess the effectiveness of our points program by comprehensively evaluating user activity and genuine trading behavior, focusing more on the quality of participation than simply accumulating TVL or trading data. Therefore, Helix's points system is designed around genuine trading and behavior, aiming to incentivize, align, and reward genuine traders, not short-term arbitrageurs. Regarding incentive design, Aster focuses on two core aspects: behavioral quality and identity binding. Firstly, in terms of behavioral quality, unlike many trading platforms that rely solely on trading volume for mining, we don't just value volume as a single metric. We comprehensively evaluate multiple dimensions, such as whether users maintain stable positions and whether they engage in continuous trading. Essentially, we observe and recognize each trader's genuine participation on the platform from a more comprehensive perspective. The quality of behavior itself is the core basis of our incentive system. Secondly, we emphasize identity binding. We aim to build a value-closed-loop incentive ecosystem, rather than a one-off event. Aster's goal is not only to attract users through events, but also to transform users into long-term, high-quality participants through close interaction and cooperation with the community. The logic behind this is clear: as you may have noticed, Aster's product iteration speed has been very fast since TGE, and we are continuously optimizing and updating. Users may initially learn about us through events like airdrops, but we hope that after they actually trade and provide feedback, they can feel that we truly value their voices. By actively responding to user feedback and rapidly iterating the product, we hope that users can grow alongside Aster. In fact, some early airdrop holders have already felt this over the past two or three months. I also hope that new users, through participation in the community and activities, can feel through this close interaction that we genuinely want to retain everyone and work together to build a truly complete and mature on-chain trading platform with an experience comparable to CEXs.