Comparisons to other projects
DeFi is a very fast moving space, so it's hard to compare Perpetual Protocol to other projects, or identify competitors. As a growing space, we're rather grow together than focus on comparisons!
That said, to date we are not aware of any project that offers our feature set:
Fully on-chain perpetual swaps
AMM model exchange (ie. no order-book)
On mainnet with fully functional layer 2 š zero gas fees for trading
Traders seamlessly interact via Ethereum (layer 1), while trades occur on xDai (layer 2)
We have some basic comparisons with commonly asked about projects below. If you see any out of date or inaccurate information, please let us know!
ā | Perp.fi | Synthetix |
Financial Instrument | Perpetual Contract | Synthetic Assets |
Slippage | Slippage from constant-product curve. Roadmap: slippage could be mitigated through the algorithmic adjustment of k. | No slippage because the price comes from the Oracle directly. ā ā Traders can place any size of orders without slippage. |
Stakers' PnL | Stakers are not exposed to impermanent loss caused by price fluctuation. | Stakers must take directional positions. (Even minting sUSD is a directional position.) ā š¤ Stakers face exposure to price fluctuation in order to earn staking rewards. |
Oracle | āTWAP is used at the funding time (every hour) to calculate the funding rate. ā 1) The price is used to calculate the funding rate only, which greatly minimizes the risk of price manipulation. 2) Using the TWAP adds another layer defense against manipulation. | A continuous spot price feed is needed from the Oracle. š¤ The Oracle is needed for every block and used to calculate the value of positions. It has a huge risk of being hacked and Synthetix has suffered from different levels of losses. ā š¤ Pricing coming from the Oracle directly makes the system easier to be front-run. The prices of orders are settled 3 minutes later due to front-run protection. |
Perpetual Protocol has managed to fix or mitigate most of the Synthetix problems detailed here (front-running, skew of the debt pool, Oracle, snapshotting attack): Synthetix ā the battlefieldā
ā | Perp.fi | Futureswap V2 |
Financial Instrument | Perpetual Contract | Margin Trading |
Layer 2 | xDai chain with Biconomy relayer so users can trade directly from Layer 1. | Homegrown ORN scaling solution mitigates but does not eliminate fees. |
Slippage | Slippage from constant-product curve AMM. Soon: slippage can be mitigated through algorithmic adjustment of k. | Homegrown pricing engine results in slippage based on order size and liquidity available. |
Funding payments | FTX-inspired funding algorithm | Homegrown dynamic funding rate calculated by the ratio of longs vs shorts |
Open Interest | There is no cap on open interest | Open interest is capped by the size of the liquidity pool. š¤ This means the growth is also capped by the size of the liquidity pool. |
Impermanent Loss | Stakers are not exposed to impermanent loss due to price fluctuation. | Liquidity providers are exposed to impermanent loss. |
Underlying Assets | Not limited to ERC-20 tokens. ā ā The underlying assets could be BTC, XRP, ... , and even off-chain assets. | ERC-20 tokens only. |
Oracle | āTWAP is used at the funding time (every hour) to calculate the funding rate. ā ā 1) The price is used to calculate the funding rate only, which greatly minimizes the risk of price manipulation. 2) Using the TWAP adds another layer defense against manipulation. | A continuous price feed is needed from the oracle. ā š¤ Pricing coming from the Oracle directly makes the system easier to be front-run. The prices of orders are settled 3 to 10 minutes later due to front-run protection. |
Token | PERP - Transferable ERC-20, for voting, staking | FST - Non transferable ERC-20, for voting, fee discounts |
dYdX perpetual contracts provide an off-chain order book with on-chain settlement.
ā | Perp.fi | dYdX Perpetual Contract |
Liquidity | Guaranteed liquidity from the Virtual AMM (constant-product curve). Potential to offer long tail assets, private markets, etc. | Order book model. ā ā Higher throughput ā No slippage š¤ Need to build up liquidity from scratch. |
Auto-Deleveraging | No auto-deleveraging. | Auto-deleveraging position if the counter-party gets liquidated and the system is not able to find a new counter-party. ā š¤ When there is low liquidity, the positions are auto-deleveraged much more easily than those on centralized exchanges. |
Token model | Native PERP tokens to incentivize stakers and traders. | N/A |
Transaction fees | Transaction fees are shared with PERP stakers. | Transaction fee revenues accrue to dYdX. |
Injective is a DeFi protocol built on Cosmos, providing decentralized exchange functions with permissionless market creation.
ā | Perp.fi | Injective |
Blockchain | Ethereum | Cosmos |
Scaling | xDai Network (fully EVM compatible) | Injective Chain with Ethermint EVM and ETH peg using Peggy. |
Liquidity | Guaranteed liquidity from the Virtual AMM (constant-product curve). Potential to offer long tail assets, private markets, etc. | Order book model. ā ā Higher throughput ā No slippage š¤ Need to build up liquidity from scratch. |
Token model | Native PERP tokens for governance voting as well as to incentivize stakers and traders. | Injective governance token for PoS, governance, market making incentives, etc. |
Leverj is a DeFi protocol built on Ethereum, providing decentralized exchange functions with a high speed homegrown scaling solution ca.
ā | Perp.fi | Leverj |
Blockchain | Ethereum | Ethereum |
Scaling | xDai Network (fully EVM compatible) | Homegrown layer 2 plasma-based solution called Gluon |
Liquidity | Guaranteed liquidity from the Virtual AMM (constant-product curve). Potential to offer long tail assets, private markets, etc. | Order book model. ā ā Higher throughput ā No slippage š¤ Need to build up liquidity from scratch. |
Token model | Native PERP tokens for governance voting as well as to incentivize stakers and traders. | Injective governance token for PoS, governance, market making incentives, etc. |