Volumes on the world’s largest decentralized trading platform, Hyperliquid, are in free fall.
Meanwhile, the “Chinese Hyperliquid” Aster, backed by Binance and CZ, is gaining market share and overtaking it! Is this the end of Hyperliquid’s reign? Not really. Analysis.
Hyperliquid tumbles in September 2025
Founded in 2022 by Jeff Yan and Iliensinc, Hyperliquid allows users to trade perpetual swaps, crypto-asset derivatives, via a 100% on-chain order book. On paper, it’s impressive, especially since Hyperliquid proved its robustness this summer.
The platform handled a huge volume in the third quarter of 2025, with a record $400 billion in August and a peak of $27.2 billion on August 14.
Such success inevitably attracts competition, such as Aster, “the Chinese Hyperliquid.” The latter has enjoyed enormous success since a series of tweets from former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.
If you caught CZ tweet on Sep 18 about $ASTER you’d already be up 5.5x
Aster feels similar to Hyperliquid for trading perps. If you love Hyperliquid you’ll love Aster. The edge is Aster also runs spot / perps together onchain.
Simple mode gives one click MEV free swaps while… pic.twitter.com/O9jXEAg79q
— Crazino.eth (@crazino87) September 20, 2025
So much so that Hyperliquid’s dominance in DEX-managed volumes is faltering. After reigning supreme in the sector, even overshadowing centralized finance platforms, Hyperliquid is falling.
According to data aggregated by user uwusanauwu on Dune, the decentralized trading platform Hyperliquid now accounts for “only” 23.2% of total volume, with $9.9 billion over the last 24 hours. This represents an 18.6% decline over the last 30 days.
Total volumes are down compared to August, but that does not explain Hyperliquid’s loss of market share. In May, 71% of decentralized trading went through the protocol.
The price of HYPE, Hyperliquid’s token, has also fallen sharply after briefly hitting the symbolic $50 mark. It is currently trading at $40, down 20%. Trading volume on the latter is also down, falling 17% over the last 24 hours.
Binance’s Aster project overtakes Hyperliquid
On the other hand, the opposite is true for the DEX Aster. The protocol promoted by CZ on X is taking off, with volumes rising sharply. These volumes even exceed those of Hyperliquid over the last 24 hours, accounting for 29.6% of the total, which represents $11.8 billion. The situation has accelerated significantly over the past week, with volumes over the last seven days up 364% for Aster, according to uwusanauwu on Dune. The price of ASTER crypto is not far behind, rising 30% over the last 24 hours.
The “Chinese Hyperliquid” is not the only one nibbling away at the perpetual swaps trading market share. Lighter V2, a project backed by the a16z fund, is also riding the momentum. Lighter has seen a 166% increase in volume over the last three months, with the trend accelerating over the week with a 44% increase to $5.1 billion in volume over that period.
However, things are not that simple.
When we take a closer look, Hyperliquid does not seem to have lost ground. For example, if we look at the protocol’s total value locked (TVL), it is at an all-time high of $6.01 billion.
This metric represents the amount that users lock into a protocol in order to take advantage of decentralized finance (DeFi) services.
By comparison, according to data from DefiLlama, Aster’s TVL is “only” $1.5 billion — with a sharp increase in recent days. Before that, it was around $350 million. And Lighter V2 is not doing any better, with only $550 million in TVL. These figures are significantly lower than Hyperliquid’s.
