The latest Coinglass analysis of perpetual decentralized exchanges, which includes Hyperliquid, Aster, and Lighter, compared the user activities in trading volume, open interest, and liquidation numbers, raising debates in the comments section.
Coinglass Breaks Down Perp DEX Differences
On February 9, Coinglass shared a post, which reveals that high reported trading volumes do not always reflect real market activity, through the comparison from a 24 hours data. Hyperliquid posted $3.76 billion in volume, $4.05B in open interest, and $122.96M in liquidations.
On the contrary, Aster and Lighter posted $2.76 billion and $1.81 billion in volume, but with lower OI around $927 million and $731million, and liquidations posted around $7.2 million and $3.34 million.
With that, Coinglass stated that in healthy perpetual markets, high volume usually comes from meaningful OI changes, larger liquidations, and stronger long or short stress during price moves.
As the disparity seen on Aster and Lighter, high volume but minimal liquidations, may point to airdrop or points farming, self-trading by market makers, or volume inflation from different reporting methodologies.
On a concluding note, Coinglass said, “Hyperliquid shows much stronger consistency between volume, OI, and liquidations — a better signal of real activity. Meanwhile, Aster/Lighter’s volume quality needs further validation (vs fees, funding, orderbook depth, and active traders).”
Coinglass Analysis Sparks Debate
After the post, the comments section was filled with debate and questions from the crypto community. One person asked, “Is a platform actually superior if its main effect is to efficiently liquidate traders rather than facilitate stable institutional positioning?”
Coinglass responded by clarifying that real trading volume often comes with real pain, and platforms showing huge volume but minimal liquidations may be inflating activity artificially, raising questions about the true quality of their markets. It says that Hyperliquid’s activity reflects real traders taking real risk, with volume, open interest, and liquidations aligning consistently.
Some have accused Coinglass of unfairly speculating on Aster and Lighter, arguing that Hyperliquid’s increased liquidations may not be the result of actual market activity but rather of things like rigid algorithms, illiquid trading pairs, or massive one-off whale trades.
In response, Coinglass said that their analysis was grounded in cross-metric disparities and that the findings were unbiased and supported by data.
This Coinglass analysis comes after Arthur Hayes publicly challenged with a $100,000 price bet on the future performance of Hyperliquid’s HYPE token, following Kyle Samani’s public criticism of Hyperliquid’s fundamentals, which highlights the growing attention on Hyperliquid.
