# How we rate perpetual futures venues

Updated 24 September 2026, The Wallet First review desk

On this page: What puts a venue on this register · The five headings, and what each can move · Why the door is worth thirty of the hundred points · What the door criterion refuses to reward · Every mark on the site, in one table · What sets the sequence on a given page · The field this site scores · The provenance of every column · When two venues land on the same mark · When this page gets a new version number
This is the only rubric on the domain. It was written down on 21 September 2026 and no
venue had been marked when it was. Four separate questions get answered in four separate places, and the
sections below keep them apart. Whether a venue may appear on this site at all is settled by
[the register test](#what-puts-a-venue-on-this-register), which reads the door and nothing else. Which of
the entries turn up on a given page is settled by that page's own condition — a market list that reaches
past crypto, something to use instead of a verified account. What each one scores is settled by the
weights here. And [what sets the sequence](#what-sets-the-sequence-on-a-given-page) is settled by the
subject of the page. Marks run from 0 to 5, carried to
1 decimal place.

## What puts a venue on this register

Before a single weight is applied, one test decides whether a venue can be listed here at all: **the
sign-in a venue's own onboarding pages document must be a signature from a wallet the trader already
holds, with no email account, no social login and no wallet the venue opens on their behalf.** It is
read off the venue's own onboarding documentation on 18 September 2026, and the sign-in wording it
rests on is printed in full in the front-page table, so a reader can check every call.

Four of the venues marked below pass it and are ranked across this site: EVEDEX, Extended, Lighter and
Aevo. Six do not, and carry a mark here and nowhere else — ApeX Omni and Paradex, whose pages describe
a wallet minted through an embedded-wallet provider from an email or a social account; edgeX, whose
user terms offer an MPC login that splits a key into shares; Aster, which pairs an emailed six-digit
code with a password; Hyperliquid, which sends the code and nothing more; and dYdX, which routes
Google, Apple and email sign-ins through a third party that creates the address.

Two of those six keep a head-to-head page on this site, against an entry that did pass. Those pages say
in their own text which side of the line each venue falls on, because a comparison two readers asked
for is not the same thing as a place on the register.

The test says nothing about how well a venue is run, what it charges or how it holds collateral. It is
a boundary, and its only merits are that it is written down, that it was fixed before the entries were
chosen, and that anyone can apply it to the same documents and get the same list.

## The five headings, and what each can move

| Criterion | Weight | What we measure | How it becomes a score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onboarding and access | 30 | Three things a venue has written down about getting in — whether documents are demanded, whether a signature on its own will do, and how far its excluded list reaches. Five points between them, doubled before the weight lands. | no identity documents required to trade: 2; the venue can be used with a wallet signature alone, without an email account: 1; the excluded list stops at sanctioned territories and one further market: 2; the excluded list runs longer than that: 1 |
| Custody and settlement | 25 | Where a fill and the collateral behind it end up once the trade is done, and whether that collateral can be taken back out without the operator agreeing to it. | each fill reaches a chain, batched into a rollup or carried in a validity proof: 4; only a periodic snapshot of open positions reaches a chain: 2; a written way out that does not need the operator to agree: 3; collateral held in smart contracts that have been audited: 2; the sign-in is a wallet signature with no exchange account behind it: 1 |
| Trading cost | 20 | The published taker rate a new account pays on the BTC perpetual, charged once going in and once coming out, read as basis points. | A round trip of two basis points or less takes the full ten. After that the mark is docked half a point for each further basis point — six left at a round trip of ten, and nothing left at all by twenty-two. |
| Market coverage | 15 | How many perpetual markets the venue's own trading terms set out, and how many asset classes on that list are something other than crypto. | The market count is marked on a curve that runs out at six: 500 markets reaches the ceiling, 100 markets is worth about four and a half. Every asset class past crypto then adds a point of its own, to a limit of four. |
| Liquidity | 10 | Dollars resting on both sides of the BTC perpetual book inside 10 basis points of the mid, taken as the middle reading of every sample this desk collected. | Depth is marked on a ladder rather than a line. The bottom rung is $10,000 resting inside the band and it scores nothing; every tenfold step up adds two points, so $100,000 is a two, $1 million a four and $10 million a six. Ten is the top rung, and no book is marked above it. |


A weight is nothing more elaborate than the distance a heading can drag a total. Each heading is marked
out of ten first; the weighted result is then squeezed onto the 0–5 printed beside
a venue's name. Two headings need a note. Onboarding and access is built out of documented points that
stop at five, so it is doubled before its weight lands on it. Market coverage is two things added: a
curve over the count of perpetual markets, where 500 of them reaches a ceiling of 6, plus one point for
every asset class past crypto, stopping at 4.

## Why the door is worth thirty of the hundred points

Because it is the question the domain was built to answer. A venue can match orders beautifully and
still be no use to a trader who cannot get a position open on it, and a phrase on a landing page is not
the same undertaking as the clause in the terms behind it. Three documented things go into the
criterion: whether identity documents have to be submitted before trading, whether a wallet signature
on its own is enough with no account created, and how long the list of excluded countries runs.

## What the door criterion refuses to reward

Silence. A venue that writes down how it screens deposits takes the same mark as one that writes
nothing at all, because a screening policy is a disclosure rather than a restriction on getting in. The
difference between the two is worth knowing, so it is printed in the comparison tables — in the venue's
own words, at the length the venue used — instead of being folded into a number where a reader could
never take it apart again.

## Every mark on the site, in one table

Marked as the venues stood on 18 September 2026, and printed for every venue with an order book we
could sample — the six that the door test keeps off the register included, so that the boundary can be
read against numbers rather than taken on faith. The second column is that test's verdict. Five
criterion marks follow, each out of 10, then the two measurements the arithmetic above turns into the
cost and liquidity marks: round trip doubles the taker rate a new account pays, and depth is the middle
reading of every BTC sample we took inside 10 basis points of the mid. The wording each venue uses about
sign-in and identity documents is quoted in full in the front-page table, where there is room to print a
clause rather than clip it.


| Venue | On the register | Score | Onboarding | Custody | Cost | Coverage | Liquidity | Round trip | Depth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lighter | Entered | 4.5 | 8.0 | 10.0 | 10.0 | 9.2 | 6.4 | 0.0 bps | $16.7 million |
| ApeX Omni | Second door documented | 4.2 | 10.0 | 10.0 | 6.0 | 7.7 | 4.5 | 10.0 bps | $1.8 million |
| edgeX | Second door documented | 4.0 | 8.0 | 10.0 | 6.5 | 8.0 | 6.9 | 9.0 bps | $29.6 million |
| Extended | Entered | 3.9 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 8.5 | 9.6 | 5.7 | 5.0 bps | $7.3 million |
| Aster | Second door documented | 3.8 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 10.0 | 6.4 | 8.0 bps | $15.9 million |
| Hyperliquid | Second door documented | 3.7 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 6.5 | 9.6 | 5.9 | 9.0 bps | $8.9 million |
| Paradex | Second door documented | 3.7 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 10.0 | 7.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 bps | $32,795 |
| EVEDEX | Entered | 3.4 | 8.0 | 5.0 | 6.5 | 7.8 | 6.5 | 9.0 bps | $17.9 million |
| Aevo | Entered | 3.3 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 3.0 | 8.5 | 5.2 | 16.0 bps | $3.8 million |
| dYdX | Second door documented | 3.3 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 6.0 | 5.2 | 3.8 | 10.0 bps | $834,527 |

## What sets the sequence on a given page

Who appears is settled twice over: first by the register test above, then by the page's own condition.
Who comes first is a matter for the page's subject: where a page turns on a single documented fact —
what a round trip costs, say, or what the door asks for — that fact puts the rows in order, and on
every other page the total does it.

| Page | Ordered by |
|---|---|
| Home, Wallet only, Binance alternatives, For perpetual futures, No-KYC venues | The weighted total of all five headings |
| By what they document | How much the venue has written down about the checks it runs, and when |
| Beyond crypto | How many asset classes the venue's own market list reaches across, crypto counted as one |
| Compared | What a $10,000 in-and-out costs at the rate a new account pays |


The total stays in view either way, and it is what separates two rows holding the same value. Nothing in
the rubric bends between pages — not the five headings, not their weights, not the arithmetic — so a
venue's mark reads the same wherever you happen to meet it.

## The field this site scores

Venues whose own onboarding pages document a signature from a wallet the trader already holds as the only way in — no email account, no social login, no wallet the venue opens on their behalf. Sixteen venues were read against that test and eight pass it. Of those eight, the four that run a public order book carry a total; the four priced from an oracle are entered on the register and left unscored, because the liquidity criterion measures a book they do not run.

## The provenance of every column

- **Quoted.** The door, the vault and the price list: whatever a venue publishes about signing up,
  custody, fees, markets and excluded countries, carrying the day we read it. Where a landing page and
  the terms of use disagree, the terms are what gets quoted.
- **Measured.** Depth is collected here rather than requested. A sampler opens the public BTC perpetual
  book on 28 venues at ten-minute intervals and counts what is resting on both sides inside 10 basis
  points of the mid.
- **Borrowed.** Open interest and the previous day's turnover are each venue's own figure as published
  by CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026; audit history comes from CertiK Skynet.

## When two venues land on the same mark

Two venues that land on the same number once it is rounded are printed level, each carrying an equals sign where the place would be. Inside a level pair the alphabet decides whose name is printed above the other,
and that ordering means nothing whatsoever.

## When this page gets a new version number

A table is read again on a 30-to-60-day cycle, and immediately if a venue moves its sign-up, rewrites
its terms or reprices. If the rubric itself ever changes, it takes a fresh version number and a fresh
date at the head of this page, and every table written under the old one is marked again before the new
one goes live — two vintages are never left standing beside each other.

Scores run from 0 to 5 on one formula, fixed 21 September 2026 before a venue was scored.

The Wallet First review desk, 24 September 2026. Corrections: desk@cafrodytes.com

Publication here is paid for.