Perp DEX track enters a bottleneck period: rise dilemma and future outlook

Recently, a well-known perpetual contract trading platform launched a new version, but the market response has been tepid. This phenomenon reflects the development bottlenecks currently faced by the perpetual contract decentralized exchange (Perp DEX) sector. This article will delve into the current situation of the Perp DEX sector, the rise challenges it faces, and the reasons behind them, as well as explore possible solutions and future development trends.

Track Status

The overall trading volume of the Perp DEX sector remains around 60% of its peak period, but the fee income and number of users have significantly declined. The daily active users (DAU) are only about 30% of the peak period, and the user base of the entire sector is comparable to that of a single platform during its peak. It is worth noting that the current trading volume data is highly dependent on token incentives, which differs from the earlier growth model based on real user behavior.

The Impact of Trading Incentives

The impact of trading incentives on the current Perp DEX track cannot be ignored. Some trading platforms maintain high trading volumes through continuous token incentives, but the sustainability of this growth model is questionable. For example, a certain trading platform invests nearly $600,000 in incentive funds every week, significantly boosting trading volume, but the actual growth in the number of real users does not correspond.

User Growth Dilemma

Although trading incentives have led to a rise in trading volume, it is difficult to attract real users. The reason is that professional teams often inflate trading volumes to very high levels, resulting in a lower average incentive level, which is insufficient to attract retail investors. In this situation, the platform struggles to achieve healthy organic growth, and the token price becomes the core indicator of the product.

Solution Exploration

1. Enhance user experience: Lower the access threshold to attract more users to participate.

2. Bot Trading: Enhance DEX user experience and reduce operational threshold through instant messaging software front-end and custodial model.

3. Decentralized wallet innovation: such as enhancing the transaction experience through the AA wallet model, but this requires a gradual process.

Future Outlook

The issues facing the Perp DEX track are complex and difficult to resolve completely in the short term. From the current development of the Bot track, it can be seen that the infrastructure layer may not achieve higher actual profitability than the consumer service layer. In the case of homogeneous basic mechanisms, providing good user service and operations may bring greater benefits. This trend is similar to the development process of perpetual contracts, where innovators are not necessarily the final market winners.

In the future, the development of the Perp DEX track may need to invest more effort in user experience, product innovation, and operational strategies to break through the current rise bottleneck and achieve sustainable development.