While most corners of decentralized finance (DeFi) have faced a slowdown, one area is quietly gaining strength: perpetual futures trading.
Recent data from DefiLlama shows that spot DEX trading volume dropped by over 56% in March compared to January. The drop largely stems from the fading buzz around memecoins, which had driven a wave of speculative activity earlier in the year. As that narrative lost steam, so did much of the onchain trading volume.
But interestingly, the story is different in the perp markets.
Instead of shrinking, perpetuals have continued to grow, attracting more users and increasing trading activity. While memecoins may come and go, the appetite for leveraged, 24/7 trading seems to be holding strong. This shift has helped several perp platforms gain traction, even as the broader DeFi ecosystem takes a breather.
In this analysis, we'll delve into the recent performance of perpetual (Perps) trading platforms on Solana, primarily focusing on the dominant market leader Jupiter and the rapidly growing newcomer, Adrena.
Jupiter's Dominance: Capturing Market Share
According to recent data from DefiLlama, Jupiter currently holds a commanding position, capturing over 80% of the total perpetual trading volume within the Solana ecosystem.
This marks a significant shift from late 2023, when Drift dominated the market with roughly 60% share. Jupiter's rapid ascent underscores its strong appeal among traders, facilitated by seamless user experiences and efficient execution.
Conversely, Flashtrade, which once accounted for around 16.5% of market share in mid-2024, has seen its stake diminish sharply to below 0.6%, demonstrating the highly competitive and evolving landscape.
Volume Growth and User Activity: Jupiter’s Impressive Metrics
The growth trajectory of perpetual trading volumes on Solana has been remarkable. February 2024 witnessed a fourfold increase compared to January, jumping from $3.9 billion to over $15.3 billion. This upward trend persisted, hitting a new all-time high in November 2024 with monthly trading volumes surpassing $43.4 billion.
Jupiter has remained at the heart of this surge. Flipside data reveals that Jupiter’s cumulative trading volume has exceeded $294 billion. Impressively, since the start of 2025 alone, its volume has grown by more than 1.5 times, with an addition of over $100 billion in approximately 100 days.
Interestingly, while historically Long positions have dominated Jupiter's activity, recent market turbulence—driven by negative economic news such as new U.S. tariffs and declining equities—has resulted in an increased prevalence of Short positions, occasionally surpassing Long positions.
Despite spot trading volumes declining amid bearish sentiment, Jupiter has seen a marked rise in collateral deposits—from around $350 million in late January to over $618 million—highlighting traders' continued trust and active participation.
Jupiter currently records over 7,000 daily active addresses, with fluctuations peaking at over 17,000 addresses in early February 2025. This solidifies Jupiter’s status as the primary destination for Perps trading on Solana.
Adrena: Rapidly Emerging Challenger
Adrena, launched just seven months ago, has quickly established itself as a formidable competitor.
Based on Defillama, currently ranking third in weekly trading volume behind Jupiter and Drift, Adrena handled over $385 million in trades in the last week alone, capturing nearly 4% market share.
Volume Breakdown and Remarkable User Growth
Since launch, based on Flipside data Adrena’s total trading volume has surpassed $3.87 billion, with a significant bias towards Long positions (88.4%). Notably, trading volume has sharply increased recently, adding approximately $870 million since mid-March.
User engagement on Adrena stands out particularly. Despite having only about 1,625 active addresses, Adrena sees significantly higher trading volumes per user compared to other platforms—even Jupiter.
Its daily active addresses grew from approximately 50 in early February to over 170, reflecting a remarkable 3.4x increase. Additionally, traders on Adrena demonstrate high frequency and retention rates, averaging up to 13 trades per user in certain instances.
The rise in trades, volume and active addresses is largely driven by the launch of Season 1 of Adrena's reward program, which kicked off on February 1st. At the end of the season, a total of 5 million $ADX and 50,000 $JTO will be distributed to the top users.
User retention is also impressive, with rates of 47%, 37%, and 34% over weeks one, two, and three, respectively, surpassing many competitors.
Token Volume Distribution
$JitoSOL significantly dominates Adrena’s trading, contributing over 66.5% of total trading volume—equating to more than $2.3 billion since launch.
Looking Ahead: A Bright Future for Solana Perps
Despite Hyperliquid's impressive growth and dominance in the perpetual futures trading sector, Solana-based perps traders seem to be sticking with Solana protocols rather than migrating to this emerging competitor. Hyperliquid, a layer-1 decentralized exchange (DEX), has been processing significant trading volume, outpacing the combined efforts of Solana’s perps DEXs. Yet, the loyalty of Solana traders persists, driven by the continuous innovation and relentless development within the Solana ecosystem
Drift Protocol, one of Solana’s top perpetual exchanges, recently introduced Swift—a new trading standard aimed at attracting users with faster execution speeds, including those eyeing platforms like Hyperliquid. We covered this in our last report.
At the same time, Zeta Markets has rebranded as Bullet, marking a shift toward a performance-focused trading platform. Bullet is being built as a Solana-native extension optimized for trading, leveraging zero-knowledge proofs for high speed and scalability. It’s currently in testnet, and we’ve shared more details in our report.
This persistent grinding and innovation by Solana protocols like Drift and Bullet offer a glimpse into the future of DeFi on Solana. Rather than losing ground to competitors like Hyperliquid, Solana’s DeFi teams are doubling down on their commitment to improving performance and user experience.
As these protocols continue to push the boundaries of onchain trading, they hint at a future where Solana-based DeFi could rival, or even surpass, the efficiency and appeal of centralized exchanges.
Stay tuned for further insights into how these platforms evolve and shape the future of DeFi trading on Solana.
This piece is part of our Solana Data Insights series. Make sure to subscribe to Solana Data Insights for weekly onchain analysis.
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