Cryptocurrency leverage remains sharply below its 2025 peak months after the market-wide liquidation shock in October, according to… CoinGecko report on the state of perpetual cryptocurrencies for 2026.
Total open interest in cryptocurrencies has declined from a peak of $210 billion on October 7, 2025, before The liquidation event occurred on October 10To $99.09 billion by April 2026. This leaves market-wide open interest more than 50% below its high, showing that traders are not rebuilding leverage at the same pace.
Open interest remains more than 50% below its peak
This decline comes as centralized permanent exchanges continue to dominate cryptocurrency derivatives trading. However, their activity weakened in 2026.
The average monthly trading volume of the 11 largest perpetual exchanges was $7.11 trillion in 2025. That fell to $4.69 trillion during the first four months of 2026, a decline of 34%.
Binance and OKX remain the biggest places. In early 2026, Binance had 33% of the Perp CEX market share, while OKX had 15%.
Perp DEXs made gains despite CEX dominance
However, the market shift towards cross-chain derivatives is still visible. Perp DEXs recorded trading volume of $6.38 trillion in 2025, up from $1.50 trillion in 2024.
Its momentum has slowed this year, but volumes are still well above early 2025 levels. Average monthly trading volume for the 12 largest live trading platforms was $611.57 billion in 2026, compared to $531.65 billion in 2025.
Hyperliquid remains the clearest example Of transformation. The exchange processed $190.28 billion in April trading volume, putting it close to BingX and well ahead of KuCoin.
Perp DEXs have also gained ground in open interest. Their share increased to 13.5% by the end of April 2026, while the stock exchange’s share decreased from 96.4% at the beginning of 2025 to 86.5%.
Meanwhile, the stock exchange continues to compete with strong listings. MEXC added 879 new Perp contracts from January 2025 to April 2026, while BingX added 565.
Newer DEXs are also getting attention. Pacifica, Extended and Variational have taken share from legacy platforms, with the help of point programs that may keep airdrop-based traders active.
The data suggests that leverage reset after October. CEXes still control most of the market, but DEXs now have enough volume and open interest to form the next phase of cryptocurrency derivatives trading.
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