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Every industry has its crown jewel worth fighting for. In crypto, that crown jewel is perpetual derivatives.
Perps give high-risk traders leveraged exposure to crypto markets, using periodic funding payments between longs and shorts to anchor prices to spot.
It’s a highly lucrative financial instrument that dominates trading flow. Perps account for at least 70% of CEX volumes and the majority of its revenues. Based on Kaiko data, 68% of all bitcoin trading volume in 2025 came from perps alone.
Given Solana’s stated ambitions to rival Nasdaq, the absence of the chain’s very own…
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