Perpetual futures decentralized exchanges (DEXs) have emerged as an alternative to centralized exchanges, introducing additional yield farming opportunities for cryptocurrency traders.
And the best part? All you have to do is continue trading digital assets to earn additional passive income.
Perpetual DEXes have exploded on the scene, offering millions of dollars in incentives to attract users from their large centralized rivals.
For crypto traders, these decentralized trading platforms offer huge compounding yield opportunities that can generate significant passive income on top of trading.
Some perp DEX vaults can even offer up to 250% passive yield, if you’re looking at the right protocols.
But the difficult part is finding the most productive yield opportunities…
This CoinStats Premium article will teach you all about perp dex farming to maximize your profits and share the best passive income opportunities for the rest of 2025. So make sure to stick around until the very end.
Disclaimer: This report was published as a free sample from our CoinStats Premium articles. To get the latest alpha and key market updates from the world of crypto, make sure to subscribe.
How to earn passive income on perpetual DEXes
“Farming” some additional income on perp DEXes can be a difficult process, especially for beginner investors.
In crypto slang, farming means engaging with the protocols that offer the best financial incentives for your activity, whether it is via stablecoin vaults or points accrual via trading and perpetual hedging.
To attract more users from the beginning, emerging perp DEXes often launch with millions of dollars in trader incentives, seeking to reward the most active user wallets.
Perp DEXs generally offer a points or “XP” system for their users, seeking to reward the most active wallets based on participation.
Wallets are rewarded for different crypto activities, such as trading via leveraged positions, liquidity provision, staking their tokens into new DeFi protocols, or opening delta-neutral trading strategies.
These points then transform into tokens during the perp DEXes incoming airdrop or token generation event (TGE), rewarding the most active wallets based on participation.
But the real key to maximizing your perp dex farming revenue is knowing which one pays the biggest incentives, which brings us to the core part of this CoinStats Premium article.
Top perpetual DEXes to maximize your crypto trading yield for 2025 & 2026
- Lighter: earn up to $10,000 by farming the Lighter airdrop until December 31
Lighter emerged as the most lucrative perp DEX for traders seeking farming opportunities in the fourth quarter of 2025, offering some of the best financial incentives to attract users.
For crypto traders, Lighter offers zero-fee perpetual futures trading with countless incentives, including financial rewards on low open interest (OI) trading pairs, trading competitions, and even profit boosts for successful traders.
But the reason why Lighter is at the top of our list is the incoming airdrop during the token generation event (TGE), which is speculated to occur at the end of December, as Season 2 of the farming program ends on December 31.
The main thing you need to do is maximize the $Lighter points earned by using the platform, which increases with the amount of capital and activity you deploy on the DEX.
The easiest way to start earning points is by simply trading perpetual futures and low open interest (OI) trading pairs on the Lighter app.
To generate even more airdrop points, you can run algorithmic, delta-neutral trading bots like that run price-neutral trading strategies, looking to capitalize both on the upside and downside of the market.’
You can use either trading bots to set up a 1x leveraged long and another 1x leveraged short position. Look for trading pairs with low open interest (OI) to maximize the points gained.
When choosing a trading pair, set a 1x long and a 1x short position via Lighter, and confirm through your wallet. The trading bot will do the rest. All you have to do is sit back, monitor your position, and enjoy accumulating airdrop points.
Traders deploying up to $10,000 in capital could generate up to 700 airdrop points. Based on today’s price, these could easily sell for another $10,000 after the TGE event.
Lastly, make sure to always monitor your delta-neutral positions, which you can conveniently track on CoinStats, across all your devices.
- Hyperliquid: up to $5k HYPE tokens for just $2k capital deployment
Hyperliquid emerged in the crypto market with some of the most profitable incentives, rewarding traders with a massive $620 million airdrop in November 2024.
But traders who missed out can still participate in the Season 2 ecosystem airdrop, as the snapshot is only expected to occur at the end of December 2025, with users expecting an airdrop in January next year.
To start farming airdrop points, launch the Hyperliquid app and focus on organic trading activities, which start by connecting a wallet and bridging funds.
The easiest way to farm points is to trade spot or leveraged perpetual futures, particularly trading pairs with low open interest (OI), which can boost your earnings through platform incentives.
Aim for 3-5 trades per week and add deploy capital in additional products to boost your rewards, such as depositing liquidity into Hyperliquid Vaults or staking HYPE tokens for a passive annual percentage rate of up to 5%.
Exploring dApps on HyperEVM could also boost your airdrop earnings with a modest time and capital investment. A few options include providing liquidity to decentralized lending protocols like Hyperlend or HypurrFi or providing liquidity on HyperSwap Vaults.
For the more speculative traders, try finding the next 100x memecoin on Hypurrfun, while continuing to accumulate airdrop points for your activity.
Active retail traders with just $2,000 capital could earn up to $5,000 in HYPE tokens during the Season 2 airdrop, based on the values and parameters of the first airdrop.
- Extended: up to $12K airdrop rewards for regular traders
Revolut-backed, Starknet-based perpetual DEX Extended is another great option if you’re looking for a promising airdrop and lightning-fast trading execution.
Extended is still running the farming season for its incoming airdrop, with the farming period suspected to end in the first quarter of 2026, and a token generation event (TGE) in the first half of next year.
Launch the Extended app and click on “Start Trading” to connect your Starknet-compatible crypto wallet to start farming airdrop points.
Start by trading spot tokens or leveraged perpetual futures to acquire tokens most simply. To automate the process, deploy some trading bots and initiate some delta-neutral leveraged bets.
To maximize your points, deploy some stablecoins into Extended vaults, which can also earn you additional passive yield on your holdings, without being exposed to the volatility of the crypto market.
With $2,000 in deployed capital, regular users can expect to earn between $5,000 and $12,000 based on the current value of Extended points, trading at $6 per point on OTC groups via Telegram or Discord.
- Paradex: $1.2k in “easy money” for airdrop in H1 2026
Paradex is another Starnet-based perp DEX, running Season 2 of its airdrop for users.
Paradex is set to make the snapshot for the Season 2 airdrop in January 2026, giving you ample time to farm some additional points to maximize your airdrop bounty.
Akin to other DEXs, points can be earned via trading spot and perpetual crypto pairs, with a significant increase for low open interest (OI) trading pairs.
Running automated trading strategies via trading bots, or providing USDC liquidity into Paradex vaults, will earn users additional points, at relatively low risk, on top of the 10% to 20% annual percentage rate (APR) in passive yield.
Paradex is set to airdrop 20% of its incoming token supply to reward users during the incoming TGE event.
With Paradex airdrop points trading around $0.8 in OTC groups, active traders deploying about $2,000 in capital can expect an airdrop of about $1,200, based on a speculative fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $1 billion.
2026: The Next Big Crypto Airdrop Season
The first half of 2026 is shaping up to become a historic period in terms of crypto airdrops, with all the above-mentioned DEXs set to reward users with millions of dollars in value.
All you have to do is execute part of your trading on these DEXs and qualify for a share of the rewards.
Maximizing your trading volume, diversifying your activities, and starting early will all help maximize your share of the airdrop allocation.
After all, you wouldn’t want to miss another $600 million Hyperliquid airdrop…
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