Preface

When Bitcoin price volatility becomes the norm, derivative trading has also become a must-learn course for insiders. Whether it’s going long or short, hedging or pure speculation, understanding how to flexibly use contract leverage is already one of the survival skills for crypto players. In the past, almost everyone only recognized centralized exchanges. With the rapid rise of on-chain derivative platforms (DEX), it brings more freedom, transparency, and trustless choices.

Gate.io

Gate.io is currently one of the more comprehensive centralized trading platforms, not only with rich spot trading pairs, but also a complete line of contract products, including USDT-based, coin-based perpetual contracts, and futures contracts. The leverage can also be flexibly adjusted. Gate.io also has a relative advantage in terms of liquidity. For those who want to pursue small coin fluctuations or seek new coin targets, Gate.io’s product line and speed performance are still quite excellent. The platform’s security has also continued to improve over time, providing a very good overall trading experience.

Start trading perpetual contracts for BTC:https://www.gate.io/futures/USDT/BTC_USDT

dYdX

When it comes to on-chain derivatives, dYdX cannot be ignored. As a benchmark for decentralized exchanges, dYdX has quickly entered the mainstream with its super smooth perpetual contract trading experience, especially with the dYdX V4 version fully embracing its proprietary chain (dYdX Chain). Users can store funds on-chain without KYC, and the trading process is more transparent and autonomous. Compared to traditional centralized contract trading, dYdX’s biggest advantage is the lack of need to trust the platform to hold assets, enabling users to control their funds. With transactions being purely matched by smart contracts, this significantly reduces the risk of malicious activities.

GMX

Another on-chain trading representative is GMX, which is different from the usual order book mode. GMX uses the LP pool counterparty model. In simple terms, everyone placing orders is gambling against the entire liquidity pool. What are the benefits of this model?

• No slippage in trading, no matter how volatile the market is, the execution price is super stable.
• When traders place orders, their counterpart is not a specific individual placing an order, but the entire liquidity pool, which provides deeper liquidity.

And if users don’t want to trade, they can also become liquidity providers (provide funds to the pool) to earn passive income from trading fees and liquidation, truly achieving the ability to earn without relying solely on trading.

Synthetix Perps

In the Ethereum L2 Optimism ecosystem, Synthetix has recently attracted a lot of attention by launching Synthetix Perps, a protocol designed specifically for on-chain derivatives, relying on oracle quotes, without order book matching, and directly gambling with LP. This makes trading fast, low cost, and very suitable for large orders, not afraid of eating too much slippage. For players who value decentralization and want to enjoy a fast and low fee experience, Synthetix is currently a very promising option.

Financial level

Level Finance (LVL) is a DeFi contract platform that allows customizable leverage, providing more advanced gameplay. In addition to offering perpetual contracts, it also allows users to customize leverage multiples, choose risk control parameters, and even adjust their position collateral ratio based on market conditions. This high degree of freedom design has made many advanced players unable to put it down, especially niche experts who enjoy designing their own strategies and risk controls manually.

ApolloX decentralized exchange

ApolloX serves as a bridge between centralized and decentralized models, providing a hybrid approach:

• Choose a centralized exchange (similar to the Gate.io model) for trading
• You can directly use on-chain wallets for decentralized derivatives without KYC operations

For users who do not want to fully entrust their funds but still want to enjoy the smoothness of centralization, ApolloX is a very good middle ground.

Account

If you are a heavy user of L2, you must have heard of Kwenta, a derivative platform based on the Optimism ecosystem that not only supports BTC and ETH, but also supports leverage trading of various niche assets. Kwenta’s biggest feature, like Synthetix, is that it does not have an order book. The quotes are driven by oracles, providing a clean and neat trading experience, suitable for players who enjoy pure DeFi trading.

Gain network

Gains Network’s gTrade, a unique gameplay, allows for ultra-high leverage of up to 150x and supports a variety of quirky assets such as indices, stock CFDs, and commodities. It represents the epitome of small bets for big wins, although its liquidity may not compare to major platforms like dYdX and GMX. With low margins and the ability to operate large positions with small funds, it has attracted many high-risk enthusiasts.

Perpetual Protocol

Perpetual Protocol is a representative of early DeFi perpetual protocols, and this on-chain perpetual exchange operating in the AMM mode became famous as early as the DeFi Summer period. After the Perp V2 upgrade, it shifted to a centralized liquidity design similar to Uniswap v3, significantly increasing trading depth. Although its market share is now surpassed by dYdX and GMX, Perp is still one of the early pioneers in the DeFi world.

Vertex Protocol

Vertex Protocol is a rapidly rising on-chain derivative trading platform in the Arbitrum ecosystem, featuring hybrid matching, combining order book and automatic market maker (AMM) mechanisms, enabling fast and gas-saving transactions. It also has its own margin pool system, which can manage cross-asset leverage, improve capital utilization efficiency, and introduce a points reward mechanism, where trading is also mining, providing early users with high airdrop incentives, making Vertex a very worthy black horse in the on-chain derivative market.

Summary

The current crypto market is no longer dominated by centralized major platforms. The rise of decentralized derivative platforms has given traders greater freedom and asset sovereignty. From mature and convenient centralized platforms like Gate.io to emerging on-chain forces like dYdX, GMX, Vertex, etc., every participant can choose the most suitable field according to their own style. Want to leverage risk? Have control over funds at any time? Mine while trading? These demands on the chain have given everyone the opportunity to break free from the old framework and move towards a trading world where they truly control their destiny.