# The Decentralized Exchange List, 16 Venues and What Each One Lists Rev. 24 September 2026. Kept by Chain Sheet editors. ## Abstract This decentralized exchange list sets out 16 on-chain venues by what they carry: 10 order-book venues with a score, and six priced from an oracle, matched elsewhere or paused, on 24 September 2026. Published counts run from three contracts to 578. Every count is the venue's own, read on one day. Weights: Settlement and custody 30 · Measured book depth 25 · Round-trip taker cost 18 · Audit and incident record 15 · Markets and asset classes 12, fixed 22 September 2026, scored out of 12. Method: https://echoblock.org/how-we-score ## The decentralized exchange list, September 2026 Arranged by the overall score; each market count is the venue's own, and the classes beyond crypto sit in the entries below. The six with no public book have entries of their own further down. | Rank | Venue | Score of 12 | Maker / taker | Perp markets | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Lighter | 10.3 | 0% / 0% | 214 | | 2 | edgeX | 9.5 | 0.040% / 0.045% | 172 | | 3 | Extended | 9.3 | 0% / 0.025% | 325 | | 4 | Aster | 9.2 | 0% / 0.040% | 578 | | 5 | ApeX Omni | 8.6 | 0.020% / 0.050% | 125 | | 6 | Hyperliquid | 8.3 | 0.015% / 0.045% | 324 | | 7 | Paradex | 7.8 | 0% / 0% | 63 | | 8 | EVEDEX | 7.6 | 0.015% / 0.045% | 52 | | 9 | dYdX | 7.0 | 0.010% / 0.050% | 78 | | 10 | Aevo | 6.5 | 0.050% / 0.080% | 102 | Fee columns are the entry tier on the BTC perpetual, before volume, staking or referral discounts; market counts are the vendor's own. Equal totals share a rank. Access is decided by each venue's own terms and does not enter the score. A pool-priced venue charges to open and to close instead. Every contract on this sheet is carried on margin, and margin is what a move the wrong way takes first. Listed but not scored: gTrade, GMX, Ostium, Orderly (WOOFi Pro), Drift, Jupiter Perps — none of them leaves a public order book to measure. ## 01 · [Lighter](https://lighter.xyz) — the widest reach across asset classes Score 10.3 of 12. The sequencer proves each batch on Ethereum, where deposits sit. Its real-world-asset pages describe commodities, equities and fixed income trading continuously — the widest reach here, across 214. - For: Fixed income, which nothing else here lists; An exit queue and a desert mode, both documented. - Against: 300 milliseconds of added taker latency by default; No public bug bounty. - Not for: latency-sensitive strategies. ## 02 · [edgeX](https://pro.edgex.exchange) — the largest equity list on the sheet Score 9.5 of 12. Perpetual futures on commodities, stocks and crypto, matched off-chain and settled into rollup contracts on the EDGE chain. Of 172, 93 are shares and funds. - For: 93 share and fund contracts, the most here; A withdrawal that bypasses the operator, documented. - Against: A maker fee where four venues charge nothing; Share contracts refuse market orders out of hours. - Not for: makers who need a rebate. ## 03 · [Extended](https://extended.exchange/) — a long list, most of it quoted on request Score 9.3 of 12. Every transaction settles on Starknet. Of 325 markets, 47 run a public order book and 278 are quoted on request, the model its real-world-asset pages set out [1]. - For: Six asset classes on one Starknet account; One flat rate, no volume ladder. - Against: 278 markets have no public book to read; No forced withdrawal documented. - Not for: readers who read a count as depth. ## 04 · [Aster](https://www.asterdex.com) — the longest contract list here Score 9.2 of 12. Matching and settlement run on Aster Chain, the venue's own layer one, whose overview names perpetual markets on crypto, stocks and commodities. Its BTC spread was the tightest we read, at 0.01 bps. - For: The longest contract list of the sixteen, pre-listing names included. - Against: Closed core code, no outside validators yet; An operator-signed bridge, no forced withdrawal. - Not for: traders who pick a chain for its validators. ## 05 · [ApeX Omni](https://omni.apex.exchange/) — 39 traditional-market contracts beside 86 crypto Score 8.6 of 12. Matched trades execute on the zkLink rollup, whose contracts hold deposits and carry a documented forced withdrawal. Its traditional-market pages add stocks, funds, commodities and metals, settled in USDT. - For: Forced withdrawal to layer one, documented; 39 of its contracts are outside crypto. - Against: $1.7 million resting within 10 basis points on BTC; The published audits cover the rollup, not its engine. - Not for: orders that walk the book. ## 06 · [Hyperliquid](https://hyperliquid.xyz) — two market lists inside one venue Score 8.3 of 12. The order books sit inside the venue's own layer one, where every trade and liquidation is a chain transaction [2]. Of 324 perpetuals, 178 are validator-run and 146 builder-deployed. - For: The third-longest list here, stocks and currencies included. - Against: About $4.9 million and about $4 million lost in its own vault; No withdrawal without the operator documented. - Not for: traders who want no venue-run book. ## 07 · [Paradex](https://www.paradex.trade) — 63 markets on a Starknet appchain Score 7.8 of 12. The book is held on the venue's own cloud and settles to Paradex Chain, a Starknet appchain. Its 63 markets include the commodity and equity contracts its docs list separately. - For: Commodity and equity contracts beside crypto, nothing to pay from the web. - Against: $32,552 resting within 10 basis points, the thinnest here; A chain rollback in January 2026 after a corrupted state. - Not for: anything larger than a small clip. ## 08 · EVEDEX — 39 crypto pairs and 13 contracts off crypto Score 7.6 of 12. The matching sits off the chain and Arbitrum holds a periodic position snapshot, refreshed again whenever a balance leaves [3]. EVEDEX trading terms list 52 contracts on 18 September 2026: 39 crypto pairs, five US stocks, one index, silver, WTI crude, a Tether Gold contract, two currency pairs and two pre-listing names. - For: Six asset classes on one cross-margin balance in USDT; $18.7 million resting within 10 basis points on BTC. - Against: The shortest contract list of the scored venues here, against hundreds elsewhere; No spot market, and no bug bounty listed. - Not for: traders who need per-position margin. ## 09 · [dYdX](https://www.dydx.xyz) — the narrowest reach beyond crypto Score 7.0 of 12. The book lives in validator memory and never touches disk; the Cosmos chain dYdX runs receives the match. Of 78 markets, three are not crypto: WTI crude, silver and a gold token. - For: An account opens with Google, Apple or email; Bug bounty of up to $1,000,000 for critical reports. - Against: One asset class off crypto, against five at the widest venues here; $829,432 resting within 10 basis points. - Not for: traders who want shares or metals. ## 10 · [Aevo](https://www.aevo.xyz/) — equities and pre-listing names on a rollup Score 6.5 of 12. An off-chain book settling into contracts on its own rollup. Its 102 perpetuals add 32 equity contracts, commodities, currencies and pre-listing names to crypto. - For: Five classes beyond crypto on one margin account. - Against: 0.080% to take, the dearest entry tier here; A legacy vault loss of about $2.7 million in December 2025. - Not for: frequent takers. ## Not scored · gTrade — currencies, commodities and shares from an oracle No book: a median oracle price opens the trade and the result settles against shared vaults. 178 of 488 pair entries were live on 18 September 2026. - For: Currencies, commodities and shares quoted beside crypto. - Against: Pairs shut when the market underneath them does; A liquidation takes the whole collateral behind it. - Not for: sizing against resting depth. ## Not scored · GMX — oracle-priced trades with no order book Keepers fill against its own pools at an index price, and every position settles on a chain. The market list ran to 103 on 18 September 2026. - For: Each open, close and liquidation is written to a chain. - Against: Leverage on offer falls as open interest against a pool grows; About $42 million left the earlier version in a July 2025 exploit. - Not for: size that needs a book to absorb it. ## Not scored · Ostium — shares and currencies against one vault Trades open, close and liquidate on a chain at prices from the venue's own consensus oracle. It lists 83 pairs. - For: Opening costs 0.06% on Bitcoin and closing costs nothing. - Against: Orders are refused while the market underneath the pair is shut; Leveraged stock positions are closed for the trader at 15:45 in New York. - Not for: traders who want a book to quote into. ## Not scored · Orderly (WOOFi Pro) — no front door of its own Orders from every front-end built on it meet in one book off the chain, batched to its own rollup. 80 markets were listed. - For: The same depth is reachable from several front-ends. - Against: Each front-end sets its own fee above the base rate; Nothing on deposit screening in the documents we read. - Not for: anyone who needs one rate for one venue. ## Not scored · Drift — paused, with a fork running in its place Paused since 1 April 2026. The app now points at Velocity, a separate Solana program settling in USDT with 4 markets. - For: Velocity fills from a book on the chain, not from a pool. - Against: Paused since the exploit that took $295 million; Nothing carries over from the paused venue to the fork. - Not for: anyone looking for the venue they used before. ## Not scored · Jupiter Perps — three assets from a Solana wallet One shared pool is the counterparty to every trade, at oracle prices and with no book. Three assets give six possible positions. - For: A Solana wallet is the whole account. - Against: Limit orders are blocked once pool utilisation passes 80%; A liquidation keeps whatever collateral is left. - Not for: anything beyond the three assets in the pool. ## What a market count is worth Every figure in the markets column is the venue's own, and no two count the same way. Extended lists 325 markets, 278 of them quoted on request with no public book [1]. Hyperliquid reaches 324 as two lists in one: 178 run by its validator set and 146 deployed by outside builders [2]. EVEDEX shows the gap the other way round: its trading terms listed 52 perpetual contracts on 18 September 2026 [3], and CoinMarketCap listed 49 markets for the venue on 22 September 2026 [4]. Both carry the date each was read, because a count is a claim about breadth, not about how much of it a trader can fill. ## Six venues this sheet reads but cannot score Four of the six price from an oracle against a shared pool; two run books this sheet cannot read. None leaves resting orders to measure, so none carries a total. Each keeps an entry of its own below. ## What a place on this list does not mean A venue is here because it was read, not because it was endorsed. It leaves the list when its endpoint stops answering or when nobody can say who holds the deposits. ## Quoted from the sources > "This is possible because Gains does not match buy and sell orders through an order book." — gTrade documentation, Overview, 18 September 2026. > "Jupiter Perps supports leveraged long and short positions on three assets: SOL, ETH, and wBTC." — Jupiter documentation, Perpetuals FAQ, 18 September 2026. > "Orders are submitted and matched off-chain, while matched trade data is uploaded for on-chain settlement." — Orderly documentation, Order book design, 18 September 2026. ## How this sheet was compiled The documentary columns — rate card, contract list, leverage ladder, custody mechanics, audit reports — come off each venue's own pages as they stood on 18 September 2026. The book column is ours, read from 20 September 2026 into 21 September 2026, a reading every ten minutes; no account opened, no order sent. The weights behind all 10 marks were fixed on 22 September 2026: [how we rate](/how-we-score). A document is not behaviour: settlement, forced withdrawals and audit history are entered as the venue states them. The cost column is the published entry-tier rate, crediting no volume tier, staking discount or referral deal. One market stands behind depth — the BTC perpetual. ## Sources 1. Extended documentation, RWA markets. https://docs.extended.exchange/extended-resources/trading/rwa-markets (18 September 2026) 2. Hyperliquid documentation. https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/about-hyperliquid.md (18 September 2026) 3. EVEDEX trading terms and documentation, named in text, not linked. (18 September 2026) 4. CoinMarketCap, DEX derivatives ranking. https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/dex/?type=derivatives (22 September 2026) ## FAQ ### How many decentralized exchanges are there? More than any sheet can hold. This one carries 16 on-chain derivatives venues whose terms and market lists were readable on 18 September 2026. Ten run a public order book and carry a score; six price from an oracle, match elsewhere or are paused. ### Which decentralized exchange lists the most markets? Aster, at 578 perpetual contracts in its own exchange information on 18 September 2026, ahead of Extended at 325 and Hyperliquid at 324. CoinMarketCap counted 686 markets for the same venue on 22 September 2026, a different count on a different day. ### Why do market counts differ from one source to another? Because they count different things. A venue counts what its own list returns that day; a ranking counts what the feed it receives carried. Delisted pairs, markets quoted on request and builder-deployed contracts are included by some counts and left out of others. ### Are there decentralized exchanges without an order book? Four here: GMX, gTrade, Jupiter Perps and Ostium. Each quotes from an oracle against a shared pool, so a trade pays an opening and a closing charge plus price impact instead of crossing a spread. They keep their facts but carry no score. ### Which decentralized exchanges list stocks, currencies or commodities? Most of them. Lighter, Extended, Aster, Aevo and EVEDEX each carry five classes beyond crypto, and edgeX lists 93 share and fund contracts among its own. Ostium and gTrade quote the same assets from an oracle instead of a book. ### Does a longer market list mean better trading? No. Length says what a venue will quote, not what is resting behind the quote. At Extended, 278 of its 325 markets have no public book at all, and Paradex held $32,552 within 10 basis points on the one market we measured. ### Is Drift still running? Not as it was. The program has been paused since the exploit of 1 April 2026, which took $295 million of user funds, and its interface now points at Velocity, a separate program with four markets. Balances from the original venue never carried over. ### Do these venues all settle on the same blockchain? No, and it is the main structural difference between them. Settlement runs on Ethereum rollups, on Starknet, on Arbitrum, on Cosmos chains and on chains the venues built themselves. EVEDEX records position data on Arbitrum; dYdX commits matches to its own chain. ### how do i tell if a perp dex really lists a market or just advertises it Open the live market list rather than the home page and check three things: whether the market is active, whether it has a public book or is quoted on request, and what hours it keeps. Those checks left 178 of gTrade's 488 pairs. ### Which decentralized exchange lists the fewest markets? Jupiter Perps, with three assets and six possible positions, then the Velocity program that replaced Drift with four. Among the venues that carry a score, EVEDEX lists 52 contracts and Paradex follows at 63. A short list is not a fault on its own; it usually means fewer thin books to quote and to police. ## Corrections Chain Sheet editors, 24 September 2026. Corrections: sheet@echoblock.org. Publication of this sheet is bought.