Who is leading the derivatives trading platform in 2025? Revealing the differences in trading volume and traffic

【Blockchain Rhythm】I took a look at the performance reports of the leading derivatives trading platforms this year, and the results are interesting—the platform with the highest trading volume is not the same as the one with the highest user attention.

Based on the full-year 2025 contract trading data, Hyperliquid leads with a staggering $2.93 trillion in trading volume, nearly twice as much as the second-place Lighter. Although Lighter achieved a trading volume of $1.314 trillion, ranking second, its web traffic was surpassed by Aster.

Aster’s performance is the most intriguing—despite a contract trading volume of $791 billion, ranking third, its web traffic of 13.23 million visits is the highest among all platforms, surpassing Hyperliquid (6.7 million visits) and Lighter (11.65 million visits), which have much higher trading volumes. What does this reflect? It may indicate a significant gap between user attention and actual trading activity.

Looking further, EdgeX has a trading volume of $586 billion with 1.1 million web visits, and ApeX has $338 billion with 1.7 million visits. Pacifica’s data is relatively lower (trading volume of $82 billion, 870,000 visits), but this platform is a new player that only went live on the mainnet in June last year. It had no trading data in the first half of this year, and the figures mainly reflect accelerated growth from September to the end of the year.

Overall, while these derivatives platforms show clear tiers in trading scale, who can truly attract and retain users will depend on their subsequent product iterations and ecosystem development.