HYPE's Epic Catalyst: PerpDEX Opportunities in 2025

Where is the next spark?

A strong rally attracts a flood of participants. After a period of quiet, the points frenzy in PerpDEX is about to enter its second phase.

Variational

Variational is the largest project by funding among those still running an official points program. It completed a roughly $50 million Series A in May this year, led by Dragonfly with participation from Bain Capital Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, and others. Its earlier $10.3 million seed round was co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and Peak XV, bringing total public funding to about $60.3 million. Variational takes a request-for-quote derivatives approach, and Omni packages this institutional-grade liquidity capability into a perpetual contract product that ordinary traders can use.

Variational's Omni points program launched in December 2025, initially retroactively distributing 3 million points to early users, with the team planning to allocate about 50% of tokens to the community. Points are settled weekly, and the team has committed to ending point distribution by the end of Q3 this year at the latest, which can be seen as the final observation phase before TGE. Currently, over-the-counter quotes for a single point range from $10 to $20.

For new users, Variational is currently the project that can deliver results fastest, but earning points through interaction is relatively difficult at this stage, so costs need to be managed carefully.

Extended

Extended is developed by a former Revolut team. The project raised $6.5 million in 2024 from investors including Tioga Capital and Semantic Ventures. In July this year, Extended completed a $12.5 million strategic round led by eToro with participation from Jump Crypto and Alber Blanc, bringing total public funding to about $19 million.

Extended's Season 1 points have been running since April 2025. The current rule is a weekly distribution of 600,000 points, with a total cap of 70 million. Points mainly come from three types of activities: normal trading, providing liquidity to the Vault, and inviting real users.

The most important thing to note here is the invalid trade determination, i.e., "Sybil checking." In August, Extended cut about 5.04 million abnormal points, involving cross-account wash trading, self-referral, Sybil addresses, and multi-account coordinated volume farming. After processing, cumulative points stand at about 64.67 million, leaving only about 5.33 million before the 70 million cap. At the current weekly emission rate of 600,000, the room for new users is relatively limited.

RISEx

RISEx is the core perpetual contract product of RISE Chain and has not separately disclosed funding. After RISE Chain received a $4 million investment from Galaxy Ventures in 2025, its cumulative funding reached $8 million, with early investors also including Vitalik and Aave founder Stani.

RISE Ignite Season 1 began scoring on July 20, 2026, distributing 200,000 RISE Points weekly, with the campaign ending no later than Q2 2027. RISEx users can earn all RISE points generated by the product, covering traders, liquidity providers, and developers integrating Builder Code.

RISEx's scoring method is more complex than simply looking at volume. The system comprehensively evaluates trading maturity, fees and slippage, negative price drift, maker and taker volume, position size and holding time, with undisclosed weights that are adjusted weekly. Referrers can earn an additional 10% of their referees' points.

RISEx's advantage is that the season just started over a month ago, making points relatively easy to earn, and depth is also friendly.

Lighter & Robinhood Wallet

Lighter has raised about $89 million publicly, with its latest $68 million round co-led by Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital, with participation from Robinhood.

Lighter and Robinhood have allocated 11 million LIT tokens for the community. Eligible users trading perpetual contracts through Robinhood Wallet can earn 2x Lighter points; trading directly on Lighter's web platform on Robinhood Chain earns 1x, with points converted to corresponding LIT shares according to campaign terms.

Entropy

Entropy is a HIP-3 deployer on Hyperliquid, focusing on RWA and pre-IPO perpetual contracts. The project completed a $14 million seed round led by Ribbit Capital. Team members come from Citadel Securities, Optiver, Polymarket, and Millennium.

Entropy has not officially announced a points program, but points-related fields have already appeared in the product backend. Entropy's real-time API return values show a pointsMultiplier field in the user tier configuration; the return values also include referral commission ratios and a reward policy version called referrals-boosted-launch.

At launch, Entropy had only two markets, with low participation and competition. The same underlying asset can be hedged between TradeXYZ and Entropy to reduce single-sided price risk while leaving early trading records.

Trader @yourQuantGuy believes the most direct opportunity on Entropy right now comes from fee subsidies. Entropy's proprietary market is in Hyperliquid Growth Mode, with a taker fee of only 0.008%. When using the highest Tier 4 referral code, the referrer can return all received commissions to the trader, effectively achieving near-zero fees. This provides a lower trial cost for cross-platform spreads and funding rate arbitrage.

Arcus

Arcus is a PerpDEX (perpetual decentralized exchange) on Robinhood Chain, developed in partnership between dYdX Labs and Robinhood. Robinhood Crypto is a strategic investor in Arcus.

Arcus currently has no official points program. However, dYdX Foundation CEO Charles hinted at an Arcus token in a tweet, stating that if there is an Arcus token in the future, a portion will be reserved for the dYdX community.

Other Projects to Participate In

Trasia

Trasia is a HIP-3 exchange led by Multicoin, focusing on Asian assets, and has already launched a referral program.

GTE

GTE is developing an omnichain order book trading platform covering perpetual contracts, spot, and agent API. The project has raised about $25 million publicly, with its latest $15 million Series A led exclusively by Paradigm, and three earlier rounds totaling about $10 million.

Currently, GTE only has a waitlist open. Users can increase their waitlist points by registering, reserving a username, following official channels, and inviting valid users.

Perpl

Perpl is a perpetual contract trading platform on Monad, having raised $9.25 million led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Ergonia, Mirana, HashKey, L1D, CMS, and Breed.

Perpl is already live on Monad mainnet, currently distributing both Perpl Points and mPoints (Monad points). The team recently distributes 50,000 Perpl Points and 50,000 mPoints weekly, and announced that mPoints rewards have been unlocked to $1 million.

HelloTrade

HelloTrade was founded by former digital asset team members involved in BlackRock's IBIT, ETHA, and BUIDL (BlackRock's tokenized fund). The project completed a $4.6 million seed round in 2025, led by Dragonfly Capital with participation from Mirana Ventures. The product is currently in Alpha, and users can apply for early access.