The Next Big perp will be so Solana
Xamm2 min read·1 hour ago--
Perps on Solana has always been the one part of the ecosystem that never got fixed. The spreads are wide, the funding fees are abysmal compared to what you’re getting on top tier perp dexs, and the whole thing just never felt competitive. But that’s changing now with Phoenix.
Phoenix is going the CLOB route, matching real buy and sell orders instead of trading against a liquidity pool. That alone is a structural upgrade over what most Solana perps have been doing. The funding fees are already looking way better than what we’re used to on chain, and being fully crankless and on-chain means gasless execution and near instant fills, the UX is actually clean.
The ecosystem backing is crazy. Jito is integrating Phoenix as the perp engine for JTX, their new consumer trading app going after the same crowd currently using CEXs. That’s a massive distribution play. Add in Paradigm leading their Series A and the $75B+ in spot volume Phoenix already processed and the foundation is there day one.
The Solana community is firmly behind it as well. Toly literally angel invested directly into Ellipsis Labs’ Series A, and Mert has been loud about wanting a native high performance perp solution on Solana toly is also shilling it from door to door. That kind of mindshare from the top of the ecosystem says alot about the potential.
The one risk worth flagging is Ellipsis Labs might be spreading themselves thin. Between Phoenix perps, Phoenix spot, SolFi, and the Atlas chain they’re building, that’s a lot of plates spinning at once. If they lock in on Phoenix as the perp and let everything else run in the background, I think they run away with it.
Jupiter perps is the obvious competition but it’s running on a pool model. LPs are the counterparty, price impact on bigger trades is real, and the funding rates reflect that structural inefficiency. Phoenix doesn’t have that problem. That should be easy volume to take.
Phoenix is going to be the top perp dex on Solana. It’s just a matter of when.
We are early
