# Eight crypto futures venues, read from the book up

Updated: 24 September 2026 — Venue facts read 18 September 2026 — Order books read on this console's ten-minute poll, over the two days to 22 September 2026 — Console View operations

A perpetual futures venue will print its fee schedule on the front page and never show you its order
book. This console prints both. Eight venues, one formula, and a depth column read every ten
minutes rather than taken from a volume table.

One formula for the whole site, fixed on 22 September 2026 before a single venue was read against it.
A part-lit cell is a fraction of a point. What earns each point is set out on
[how we rate](/method).

## Outside security rating, and what a trade costs beside it

Of the eight futures venues on this console, EVEDEX has the strongest outside security rating: CertiK Skynet scores it 94.36, grade AAA (read 23 September 2026). Aster is next at 93.88 AAA, then Hyperliquid 92.14 and Lighter 90.25, both AA; Extended reads 80.5, grade A.

| Venue | Skynet | Grade | Maker / taker | Round trip on $10,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EVEDEX | 94.36 | AAA | 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker | $9.00 |
| Aster | 93.88 | AAA | 0% maker / 0.040% taker | $8.00 |
| Hyperliquid | 92.14 | AA | 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker | $9.00 |
| Lighter | 90.25 | AA | 0% maker / 0% taker | $0.00 |
| edgeX | 88.14 | AA | 0.040% maker / 0.045% taker | $9.00 |
| dYdX | 82.05 | A | 0.010% maker / 0.050% taker | $10.00 |
| Paradex | 81.98 | A | 0% maker / 0% taker | $0.00 |
| Extended | 80.5 | A | 0% maker / 0.025% taker | $5.00 |

One firm's composite, read for every venue on this console on the same day. It rates the project, not the trade.

## Standings, September 2026

One row per venue, ordered by the score out of 16. The cell strip beside each
score shows how much of the scale the venue has earned, so a cheap venue with a thin book reads
differently from a deep one that charges for the privilege.

| # | Venue | Score | Maker / taker | Round trip on $10,000 | Open interest | 24h volume | Markets | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Lighter | 13.3 | 0% / 0% | $0.00 | $585.4 million | $2.0 billion | 214 | Hybrid, ZK-proven |
| 02 | Extended | 12.4 | 0% / 0.025% | $5.00 | $84.0 million | $612.8 million | 325 | Hybrid |
| 03 | Aster | 12.2 | 0% / 0.040% | $8.00 | $1.4 billion | $3.2 billion | 578 | Own layer 1, operator-run |
| 04 | edgeX | 11.9 | 0.040% / 0.045% | $9.00 | $635.5 million | $2.5 billion | 172 | Hybrid |
| 05 | Hyperliquid | 10.9 | 0.015% / 0.045% | $9.00 | $8.7 billion | $13.4 billion | 324 | On-chain order book |
| 06 | EVEDEX | 10.5 | 0.015% / 0.045% | $9.00 | $704.9 million | $700.5 million | 52 | Hybrid |
| 07 | Paradex | 9.8 | 0% / 0% | $0.00 | $23.7 million | $21.8 million | 63 | Hybrid, Starknet appchain |
| 08 | dYdX | 9.1 | 0.010% / 0.050% | $10.00 | $37.3 million | $87.8 million | 78 | App-chain, validator-held book |

Scale 0 to 16. Weights: Order-book depth 30 · Round-trip cost 25 · Loss and audit record 15 · Settlement and withdrawal 15 · Contracts listed 10 · Getting started 5, one formula for the whole site, fixed on 22 September 2026: https://wp-monero-miner.com/method

Each criterion is marked out of ten first and weighted afterwards; the marks a venue earned, and what earns each one, are set out page by page and on https://wp-monero-miner.com/method

Open interest and 24-hour volume is self-reported by the venue and read from CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026; market counts come from each venue's own documentation and interface, read on 18 September 2026.

## Documented leverage caps on BTC

A leverage headline is a numerator printed without its denominator. The right-hand column supplies the
missing half: the notional at which each documented BTC cap stops applying. Read the two together and
a multiple that expires at 400 USDT stops resembling the same multiple carried to $50,000.

| Venue | Cap on BTC | Where the cap still holds |
|---|---|---|
| EVEDEX | 200x | band ends at $50,000; next band 100x to $200,000 |
| Aster | 200x | band ends at 400 USDT; next band 100x to $800,000 |
| edgeX | 100x | band ends at $1 million; next band 75x to $3 million |
| Extended | 50x | band ends at $4 million; next band 25x to $8 million |
| Lighter | 50x | 2% initial margin; no bands published |
| Paradex | 50x | 2% initial margin; 300 BTC limit |
| dYdX | 50x | 2% initial margin; no bands published |
| Hyperliquid | 40x | band ends at $150 million; 20x beyond |

Caps from each venue's documentation, trading rules or public interface, read on 18 September 2026;
every one of them steps down as the position grows, and the column on the right says where. Aster runs
a separate one-tap mode that reaches far higher with a cap on the profit a position may take; that is
not an order-book cap and is not in this table.

## Resting depth and spread on the BTC book

Reported turnover is the easiest number on the internet to inflate, and it says nothing about what a
market order would actually pay. So this column is measured instead: every ten minutes each public BTC
perpetual book is read and what rests within ten basis points of the mid is recorded. The bars are
medians of those readings, with the median spread beside them.

| Venue | Depth within 10 basis points | Median spread |
|---|---|---|
| edgeX | $29.2 million | 0.04 bps |
| EVEDEX | $18.6 million | 4.12 bps |
| Lighter | $16.7 million | 0.01 bps |
| Aster | $14.7 million | 0.01 bps |
| Hyperliquid | $8.1 million | 0.12 bps |
| Extended | $7.7 million | 0.12 bps |
| dYdX | $839,899 | 1.78 bps |
| Paradex | $728.00 | 7.20 bps |

Medians of every successful snapshot, 251 a venue at the middle of the range, read on this console's ten-minute poll, over the two days to 22 September 2026. No account was opened and no order was placed.

## Every page on this site

**Rankings**

- [Best crypto futures exchanges](https://wp-monero-miner.com/best-crypto-futures-exchange) — the full formula applied to 7 order-book venues, with the marks behind each score
- [Crypto futures exchange security ratings](https://wp-monero-miner.com/best-crypto-futures-trading-platform) — the same 6 venues re-sorted on an outside vendor's mark, with every score left in the row beside it
- [Best bitcoin futures exchanges](https://wp-monero-miner.com/best-bitcoin-futures-exchange) — ordered by measured BTC depth rather than by score, because on BTC that is the question
- [Best crypto contract trading platforms](https://wp-monero-miner.com/best-crypto-contract-trading-platform) — only venues carrying four or more asset classes beyond crypto, scored and then re-sorted by list length
- [Crypto futures venues by open interest](https://wp-monero-miner.com/crypto-futures-exchanges-by-open-interest) — what each venue reports it is carrying, against what its book actually holds

**Comparisons**

- [Binance Futures alternatives](https://wp-monero-miner.com/binance-futures-alternatives) — order-book venues for a trader leaving a large centralised desk, and what changes
- [Crypto futures fees compared](https://wp-monero-miner.com/crypto-futures-fee-sheet) — entry-tier maker and taker rates, and what a $10,000 round trip costs at each
- [EVEDEX vs Paradex](https://wp-monero-miner.com/evedex-vs-paradex) — batched position writes against an appchain that proves every state change
- [Aster vs dYdX](https://wp-monero-miner.com/aster-vs-dydx) — a closed chain of its own against a book held in memory by validators

**Method and definitions**

- [What is a perpetual futures contract](https://wp-monero-miner.com/how-a-perpetual-futures-contract-works) — funding, mark price, liquidation and what makes a contract that never expires work
- [How we rate](https://wp-monero-miner.com/method) — the six criteria, their weights, the rubric behind each mark and where the data comes from
- [About Console View](https://wp-monero-miner.com/about) — who publishes this, what this address used to be, and how the site is paid for

## What each venue lists, and when it trades

| Venue | Asset classes | Perpetual markets | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lighter | crypto, stocks, FX, commodities, indices, pre-IPO, bonds | 214 | not stated in the documentation we read |
| Extended | crypto, stocks, FX, commodities, indices, pre-IPO | 325 | not stated in the documentation we read |
| Aster | crypto, stocks, FX, commodities, indices, pre-IPO | 578 | not stated in the documentation we read |
| edgeX | crypto, stocks, commodities, FX | 172 | not stated in the documentation we read |
| Hyperliquid | crypto, stocks, FX, commodities, indices | 324 | not stated in the documentation we read |
| EVEDEX | crypto, commodities, FX, stocks, indices, pre-IPO | 52 | All markets 24/7, shares and commodities included |
| Paradex | crypto, stocks, commodities, indices | 63 | not stated in the documentation we read |
| dYdX | crypto, commodities | 78 | not stated in the documentation we read |

## What this site is

Everything on this site starts from one reading. The public BTC perpetual book of every venue here is
opened every ten minutes, what is resting within ten basis points of the mid price is recorded, and the
median is what the console prints. Everything else — the fee a new account pays, the leverage ladder and the notional it
holds to, how a position reaches a chain, what has to be signed before a first trade — is read in the
venue's own documentation and terms on 18 September 2026 and printed with that date beside it. Where
a venue reports its own open interest and turnover, that is what it is: a reported figure, taken from
the CoinMarketCap derivatives ranking on 22 September 2026 and labelled as such.

- **Venues scored:** 8 — every one of them runs a public BTC book that can be read from outside, without an account
- **BTC resting inside 10 bps:** $95.8 million — added across the eight books scored here, each the median of a book opened on this console's ten-minute poll, over the two days to 22 September 2026
- **Open interest reported:** $12.2 billion — the scored venues' own figures as published by CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026
- **Round trip on $10,000:** $0.00 to $10.00 — two taker fills at the rate a new account pays, before any volume tier or rebate
- **Deepest against thinnest book:** $29.2 million against $728.00 — the spread between the two BTC books no fee schedule will tell you about

## What the weights are trying to answer

Six criteria, and the two heaviest are the two a trader pays on every position. Depth carries 30 of
the 100 points because it is the cost nobody publishes: across the capture cycle the deepest BTC
book on this list held $29.2 million within ten basis points and the thinnest held
$728.00, a gap of more than four orders of magnitude, while the whole spread between the
cheapest and the dearest fee schedule here is $0.00 against
$10.00 on a ten thousand dollar round trip. Round-trip cost takes 25 because it
compounds with turnover. The record of audits and losses and the settlement question take 15 each;
they decide what happens to collateral when something goes wrong, which is rarer than a fill and
worse. Contract count takes 10 and sign-up friction 5, because a long list does not improve the
fill on BTC and a first sign-in happens once.

## Margin, funding and the close-out behind these caps

Every instrument named on this site is a perpetual contract carried on margin, and most of these
venues will let a trader run it at a double or triple-figure multiple. At 100x a move of one percent
against the position is the whole margin behind it; at 200x, half of one percent. Funding is charged
or paid for every hour the position stays open, and every venue here operates cross margin by
default, which means a loss in one contract is drawn from the collateral holding up the others.
Auto-deleveraging can close a profitable position without asking when someone else's account goes
negative. Nothing printed here is advice, and no row on this console is a reason to open a
position: a leveraged perpetual can take the whole margin behind it, quickly.

Console View operations, 24 September 2026. Placement on this site is paid for and row order is not for sale: each table is set by the published formula, or by the one column named above it. Corrections: readout@wp-monero-miner.com.

Placement on this site is paid for; row order is not for sale. Each table is set by the published formula, or by the one column named in the line above it.