Perpetual Protocol

Learn about the Perpetual Protocol & Take a Short Quiz to Earn $PERP

## What Is Perpetual Protocol (PERP)?

[Perpetual Protocol](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/perpetual-protocol/) is a decentralized exchange ([DEX](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/de/glossary/decentralized-exchange-dex)) for [futures](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/futures) on [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) and [xDai](https://coinmarketcap.com/de/currencies/xdaistable/). Traders can go long or short with up to 10X leverage on a growing number of assets like [BTC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/), [ETH](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/), [DOT](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/polkadot-new/), [SNX](https://coinmarketcap.com/de/currencies/synthetix-network-token/), [YFI](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/yearn-finance/) and others. Trading is non-custodial, meaning traders always retain possession of their assets, and on-chain. Perpetual Protocol utilizes a virtual [automated market maker](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/de/glossary/automated-market-maker-amm) (vAMM), which provides on-chain liquidity with predictable pricing set by constant product curves. Furthermore, Perpetual Protocol designed its vAMMs to be market-neutral and fully collateralized.

The declared vision of Perpetual Protocol is to create the world’s best, most accessible, and most secure decentralized [derivatives](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/derivative) trading platform. By building on our DeFi projects and allowing projects to build on Perpetual Protocol, the company embraces the “DeFi money lego” ethos. After hitting a number of milestones in its roadmap, such as launching staking pools and implementing limit and [stop-orders](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/stop-loss-order), Perpetual Protocol plans to expand to other chains, introduce leveraged tokens, and launch dynamic liquidity in its pools. 


## Who Are the Founders of Perpetual Protocol?

Perpetual Protocol was launched by Yenfen Weng and Shao-Kang Lee, two Taiwanese cryptocurrency entrepreneurs that previously had launched payroll & accounting companies for crypto startups. Most of the team is based in Taiwan. Perpetual Protocol is backed by many highly reputable investors, such as Zee Prime Capital, Multiarrows Capital, CMS Holdings, Binance Labs and Alameda Research, a strategic partner of FTX. With their backing, the company closed a Multicoin Capital-led seed round for $1.8M in 2020.


## What Makes Perpetual Protocol Unique?

The goal of Perpetual Protocol is to create a perpetual contracts trading platform that anyone can use. To do that, users need to be able to trade with good liquidity and low slippage. Perpetual Protocol solves this by employing its vAMM solution. Perpetual Protocol doesn’t follow the usual order book model of centralized exchanges. Instead, traders trade against a virtual automated market maker, whose initial liquidity is set by the operator.

For instance, assume the operator sets the vAMM’s liquidity at 100 vETH to 40,000 vDAI. Someone depositing DAI to go long on ETH would tilt the price of ETH upwards and create an incentive to go short on vETH if the price is out of line with market prices. Traders going short on vETH would also deposit DAI as collateral and bring the price of vETH back to its equilibrium. Having liquidity swaps is unnecessary, as the vAMM functions as a tally of all trades and automatically finds an equilibrium in the long run. In practice, trades on Perpetual Protocol are all settled in USDC. 

By using this vAMM model and building the exchange on xDai, traders are able to enjoy on-chain trading without fees and instant settlement. Furthermore, Perpetual Protocol supports gas-free deposits over 500 USDC, meaning traders are able to deposit with 0 ETH in their wallets.


## Related Pages:

Check out [dYdX (DYDX)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dydx/) — one of the most popular decentralized exchanges.

Check out [Idex (IDEX)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/idex/) — a decentralized exchange for trading futures.

Read our [deep dive about decentralized liquidity pools.](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/decentralized-liquidity-pools-a-deep-dive-with-finnexus-options)

Get the latest crypto news and latest trading insights with the [CoinMarketCap blog](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/categories/blog).


## How Many Perpetual Protocol (PERP) Coins Are There in Circulation?

The total supply of PERP is 150 million. The current circulating supply of PERP is 68.7 million. The token distribution is as follows:

7.5 % - Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (LBP)

4.2 % - Seed investors, 20% unlocked on mainnet launch, 20% every three months

15% - Strategic investors, 20% unlocked on mainnet launch, 20% every three months

21% - Team & advisors, 2.1% per 3-month period beginning six months after mainnet launch

54.8% - Ecosystem & rewards, distribution of ecosystem rewards will be decided by the Perpetual Protocol community

PERP is a utility token that incentivizes and facilitates the decentralized governance of the protocol. The token feedback loop looks like this: Staking rewards & trading fee rewards increase > 2. PERP token value increases > 3. PERP token awareness increases > 4. Protocol awareness increases > 5. Trading volume increases > 6. Trading fees increase > Back to 1.


## How Is the Perpetual Protocol Network Secured?

Perpetual Protocol has been audited by Consensys and Peckshield. The protocol is community-governed and has a bounty program for developers that find bugs in the smart contracts. The network is on xDai, while the PERP token is an [ERC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20) token on Ethereum. 

ERC-20 is a token standard most new tokens follow when publishing on the Ethereum blockchain. [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) is one of the most popular blockchains for DAOs and is secured by a [proof-of-work ](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-work-pow)consensus mechanism that requires miners to mine new Ether. A set of decentralized nodes validates transactions and secures the Ethereum blockchain.

Perpetual Protocol uses Chainlink as oracle for funding rate calculations but does not have an on-chain oracle as a price engine to prevent the use of flash loans to manipulate the price of underlying assets and profit from Perpetual within the same transaction.


## Where Can You Buy Perpetual Protocol (PERP)?

PERP is available on [UniSwapV2](https://coinmarketcap.com/de/exchanges/uniswap-v2/), [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/de/exchanges/binance/), [Kraken](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kraken/) and [Gate.io](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/gate-io/).


Trust Wallet

MetaMask

SolFlare

Backpack

Phantom

Atomic wallet

Ethereum

Shiba Inu

Chainlink

UNUS SED LEO

Uniswap

Aleph.im

Chainge

Dora Factory

Gods Unchained

VAIOT

Function X

Agoras: Currency of Tau

Streamr

Metadium

dogwifhat

Gorilla In A Coupe

Lends

zkLend

Octopus Network

SushiSwap (SUSHI) is an example of an automated market maker (AMM). An increasingly popular tool among cryptocurrency users, AMMs are decentralized exchanges which use smart contracts to create markets for any given pair of tokens.

SushiSwap launched in September 2020 as a fork of Uniswap, the AMM which has become synonymous with the decentralized finance (DeFi) movement and associated trading boom in DeFi tokens.

SushiSwap aims to diversify the AMM market and also add additional features not previously present on Uniswap, such as increased rewards for network participants via its in-house token, SUSHI.

SushiSwap

SXP is the native utility token of the Solar blockchain. Users can stake it to secure the network and earn rewards, and pay transaction fees on the Solar blockchain. They can also help govern the Solar blockchain by proposing and voting on changes to the protocol, and earn rewards for providing liquidity. Additionally, Solar DApps use SXP as their primary currency.

Solar

Stella is the leveraged strategies protocol with 0% cost to borrow. Stella’s mission is to redefine how leveraged DeFi works. DeFi needs a good leverage system in order to drive more usages on DEXes and money markets, the fundamental building blocks of DeFi. With growing usages on these fundamentals, more protocols and new innovations can arise and tap into the deep liquidity and robust foundation.

Stella strives to become the go-to destination for DeFi users to access maximum yield potential. Whatever on-chain strategies that users want to use on leverage (and safe enough to be supported), then Stella will support at 0% cost to borrow.

The protocol is made up of two parts: Stella Strategy and Stella Lend.

Stella Strategy: Users can access multiple selections of leveraged strategies with 0% borrowing interest for the first time and get yields on leverage.

Stella Lend: Lenders can lend assets to the lending pools on Stella and get real yields. Yields generated from Stella Strategy are shared to lenders.

Stella

Balancer is an automated market maker (AMM) that was developed on the Ethereum blockchain and launched in March 2020. It was able to raise a $3M seed round by Placeholder and Accomplice. Balancer protocol functions as a self-balancing weighted portfolio, price sensor and liquidity provider. It allows users to earn profits through its recently introduced token ($BAL) by contributing to customizable liquidity pools.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Balancer(https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-balancer.

The protocol operates a few types of pools:

Private pools give the owner governance over the pool, and make the person the sole contributor of liquidity to the pool. Also, all the parameters are mutable by the owner.

Shared pools are for those who want to become liquidity providers (LPs). The LPs are rewarded with the Balancer Pool Tokens (BPTs).

Smart pools are similar to private pools but are controlled by a smart contract. They also reward using BPTs and allow anyone to contribute liquidity to the pool.

Balancer

Polkastarter is a decentralized fundraising platform empowering Web3 projects to launch and raise funds through multi-chain token pools whilst significantly growing their communities.

The platform supports initial dex offerings (IDOs) across major blockchains, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana, Polkadot, Polygon, Avalanche and Celo.

The platform enables investors to secure early access to IDOs, NFTs and Gaming Web3 innovation. It is most commonly used by early-stage blockchain projects that want to raise capital and easily distribute their tokens at the same time.

Through Polkastarter, blockchain projects can easily create their own fixed-chain swap pools, which allow them to securely raise funds, while users can invest without risks, since swaps are automatically executed by smart contracts.

POLS is the native utility token of the Polkastarter platform. Its main utility is gaining access to pools and giving projects the option to give priority access to POLS holders. Users are incentivised to stake POLS, rewarding the most loyal members.

In Q4 2022, Polkastarter will release new community utility features, such as governance and POLS Power Boosters (increasing your allowlisting success). The platform first went live in December 2020, and has quickly grown to become one of the most commonly used platforms for initial DEX offerings (IDOs) operating on the Ethereum blockchain.

Polkastarter

The 1inch Network unites decentralized protocols whose synergy enables the most lucrative, fastest, and protected operations in the DeFi space.

The 1inch Network's first protocol is a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator solution that searches deals across multiple liquidity sources, offering users better rates than any individual exchange. The 1inch Aggregation Protocol incorporates the Pathfinder algorithm for finding the best paths across over 400+ liquidity sources on 12 chains: Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Optimism, Arbitrum, Fantom, Gnosis Chain, Klaytn, Aurora, zkSync and Base.

In just over two years the 1inch DEX aggregator has reached 1M users and surpassed $150B in overall volume on the Ethereum network alone.

The 1inch Limit Order Protocol facilitates the most innovative and flexible limit order swap opportunities in DeFi. The protocol’s features, such as dynamic pricing, conditional orders, and extra RFQ support, power various implementations, including stop-loss and trailing stop orders, as well as auctions.

The 1inch Wallet is a multichain mobile platform that provides an easy-to-navigate interface with secure storing, transaction, and staking capabilities. This versatile wallet was built from the ground up to streamline interacting with 1inch’s features.

The 1INCH token is the governance and utility token of the 1inch Network. 1INCH holders can stake their tokens to participate in the 1inch Network's DAO governance, including the 1inch DAO Treasury management. Also, holders can choose resolvers and earn a part of their fees.

With the 1inch Fusion, users can stake 1INCH tokens to receive Unicorn Power (UP), then subsequently delegate their UP to any 1inch Fusion Resolver to start receiving rewards from them. When staking, there is the option to set a custom or preset lock period. User’s st1INCH tokens cannot be unstaked/withdrawn without penalty until the designated lock period expires.

In December 2020, 1inch raised $12 million in Series A funding, led by Pantera Capital, with others including ParaFi Capital, Blockchain Capital, Nima Capital, and Spartan Group. The funding round was conducted through a SAFT (simple agreement for future tokens) sale.

In December 2021, 1inch has closed a $175 million Series B round, led by Amber Group. Among about 50 investors that participated in the funding event are Jane Street, VanEck, Fenbushi Capital, Alameda Research, Celsius, Nexo, Tribe Capital and Gemini Frontier Fund.

1inch Network

Starting as an open-source project in 2017, IoTeX has built a decentralized platform whose aim is to empower the open economics for machines — an open ecosystem where people and machines can interact with guaranteed trust, free will, and under properly designed economic incentives.

With a global team of over 40 research scientists and engineers, IoTeX has built their EVM-compatible blockchain from scratch using the innovative Roll-DPoS consensus and launched in 2019 April, which has been running by 100+ delegates worldwide and has processed more than 10 million transactions already. On top of the IoTeX blockchain, the team has built the essential blocks of infrastructures to connect with Ethereum, BSC, and Heco blockchains such as ioPay wallet (https://iopay.me/) and ioTube bridge (https://iotube.org/), which serve ten thousands of users. IoTeX helps EVM-based DApps scale without concerning expensive gas fees!

Besides, middleware such as Decentralized Identity, Confidential Computing, and Secure Hardware has been built on top of the IoTeX blockchain. This has enabled the creation of self-sovereign devices such as Ucam, and real-world data oracles like Pebble. Ucam (https://ucam.iotex.io/) has been deployed to over 3000 households (http://iott.network/). Meanwhile, Pebble has been launched to more than 300 developers initially, and enables innovative Dapps to connect the physical world with the crypto world, such as real-world NFTs, weather derivatives and machine learning-as-mining.

IoTeX

Badger DAO is an open-source, decentralized automated organization that is dedicated to building products and infrastructure of simplifying the use of Bitcoin (BTC) as collateral across many smart contract platforms.

The platform is a shared space where the developers, known as Badge Builders, have the ability to collaborate and implement Bitcoin as collateral to as many blockchains as possible. A developer can earn a percentage of the fees and BADGER tokens from the developer mining pool for every implementation. The mainnet was launched on December 3, 2020.

A builder can be a single developer, a group of developers, or even a company. There are no fixed obligations to participation requirements, and anyone can create. The pillars of Badger DAO include the Badger Builders, the community-created products, the Dedicated Badger Operations team, the fairly initial distribution of the BADGER tokens for governance and the fact that all of the code is open-sourced.

Badger DAO

Bancor is an ecosystem of decentralized, open-source protocols that promote on-chain trading and liquidity.

Its main protocol, Carbon, is a decentralized trading protocol allowing users to perform automated trading strategies using custom on-chain limit orders and range orders, with the option of combining orders together to create automated buy low, sell high strategies.

By design, Carbon orders are irreversible on execution, easily adjustable directly on-chain, and resistant to MEV sandwich attacks. These capabilities give users an unprecedented level of control and automation to perform novel trading strategies on-chain.

Fast Lane, a separate open-source arbitrage protocol, allows any user to perform arbitrage between Bancor ecosystem protocols and external on-chain exchanges and redirect arbitrage profits back to the Bancor ecosystem.

All Bancor ecosystem protocols are governed by the BancorDAO via staked BNT.

Bancor

Coin98 is a decentralized finance (DeFi) solution that allows users access to cross-chain swaps, staking and yield farming.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Coin98.

Coin98 aims to fulfill untapped demand in the industry and become a Gateway bridging TradFi users to any DeFi services on multiple blockchains. It accomplishes this mission through a full suite of products, including Coin98 Wallet, Coin98 Exchange, and Space Gate (cross-chain bridge).

Coin98 Wallet: Allows users to store, send, receive, manage crypto assets and connect to numerous dApps on multiple blockchains. It supports over 40 blockchains such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, Terra, etc on both mobile (iOS & android) and Chrome extension versions.

Coin98 Exchange: A multi-chain liquidity aggregator that supports assets across a variety of blockchains, including but not limited to Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Avalanche and Polygon.

Space Gate: A cross-chain bridge that enables swapping and transferring values across multiple networks.

The C98 token is the native utility token of the Coin98 platform and will be used to pay services fees, as staking incentives, for governance, and unique membership rights.

In the Coin98 roadmap, there are plans to develop a launchpad, a lending and borrowing platform, a megafarm, a derivatives market and an NFT marketplace.

In July 2021, Coin98 was a Binance Launchpad project.

Coin98

Launched in 2011 by Pixowl, The Sandbox is a blockchain-based virtual world allowing users to create, build, buy and sell digital assets in the form of a game. By combining the powers of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the Sandbox creates a decentralized platform for a thriving gaming community.

According to the official whitepaper, the Sandbox platform’s main mission is to introduce blockchain technology in mainstream gaming successfully. The platform focuses on facilitating a creative “play-to-earn” model, which allows users to be both creators and gamers simultaneously. The Sandbox employs the powers of blockchain technology by introducing the SAND utility token, which facilitates transactions on the platform.

The Sandbox

Synthetix is building a decentralized liquidity provisioning protocol that any protocol can tap into for various purposes. Its deep liquidity and low fees serve as a backend for many exciting protocols on both Optimism and Ethereum. Many user-facing protocols in the Synthetix ecosystem, such as Kwenta (Spot and Futures), Lyra (Options), Polynomial (Automated Options), and 1inch & Curve (Atomic Swaps), tap into Synthetix liquidity to power their protocols. Synthetix is built on Optimism and Ethereum mainnet. The Synthetix Network is collateralized by SNX, ETH, and LUSD, enabling the issuance of synthetic assets (Synths). Synths track and provide returns on the underlying asset without requiring one to directly hold the asset. This pooled collateral enables an array of on-chain, composable financial instruments backed by liquidity from Synthetix. Some of the most exciting upcoming releases from SNX are Perps V2, which hopes to enable low-fee on-chain futures trading through the usage of off-chain oracles, and Synthetix V3, which aims to rebuild the protocol to achieve its earliest goal, being a fully permissionless derivatives protocol. Learn more about Synthetix on their blog or by joining the SNX Discord.

The platform aims to broaden the cryptocurrency space by introducing non-blockchain assets, providing access to a more robust financial market.

Synthetix

Ren (REN) is an open protocol built to provide interoperability and liquidity between different blockchain platforms.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Ren.

Formerly known as Republic Protocol, Ren launched RenVM, its virtual machine mainnet, in May 2020, having completed a $34 million initial coin offering (ICO) in 2018.

The protocol’s native token, REN, functions as a bond for those running nodes which power RenVM, known as Darknodes.

Ren aims to expand the interoperability, and hence accessibility, of decentralized finance (DeFi) by removing hurdles involved in liquidity between blockchains.

Oasis is the pioneering layer 1 blockchain designed to enable scalability and confidential compute. Oasis is home to Sapphire, the first confidential EVM that empowers Web3 and Decentralized AI developers to build dApps with Smart Privacy natively on Oasis or other EVM-based chains.

ROSE is the native token of the Oasis Network used for gas fees, staking, delegation and governance. With a unique layered architecture, Oasis presents the optimal building and execution environment for DeFi, AI, GameFi, NFTs, the metaverse, data tokenization and DAO governance. Oasis also has native support for rollups at the consensus layer.

Oasis Network

Compound is a DeFi lending protocol that allows users to earn interest on their cryptocurrencies by depositing them into one of several pools supported by the platform.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Compound.

When a user deposits tokens to a Compound pool, they receive cTokens in return. These cTokens represent the individual’s stake in the pool and can be used to redeem the underlying cryptocurrency initially deposited into the pool at any time. For example, by depositing ETH into a pool, you will receive cETH in return. Over time, the exchange rate of these cTokens to the underlying asset increases, which means you can redeem them for more of the underlying asset than you initially put in — this is how the interest is distributed.

On the flip side, borrowers can take a secured loan from any Compound pool by depositing collateral. The maximum loan-to-value (LTV) ratio varies based on the collateral asset, but currently ranges from 50 to 75%. The interest rate paid varies by borrowed asset and borrowers can face automatic liquidation if their collateral falls below a specific maintenance threshold.

Since the launch of the Compound mainnet in September 2018, the platform has skyrocketed in popularity, and recently passed more than $800 million in total locked value.

Compound

UMA was founded in 2018 by Allison Lu and Hart Lambur, two ex Goldman Sachs traders, with the goal of making global markets universally fair, accessible, secure and decentralized.

The team drew inspiration from traditional finance derivatives to define an open-source protocol to allow anyone, anywhere, to design and build trustless financial contracts.

Tokocrypto was launched in September 2018 and became the first entity registered under Indonesia's Commodities Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (BAPPEBTI) by November of that year. Tokocrypto’s latest project, TKO, is the first Indonesian cryptocurrency to offer a unique hybrid token model.

The token serves several purposes on the Tokocrypto blockchain platform and allows users to participate in crypto exchanges, deposit and savings programs, cross-platform DeFi applications, and NFT marketplaces. Toko Token was officially launched in April 2021 and has since attracted the attention of both private and enterprise users. The Tokocrypto platform was created in tandem with Binance, which serves as a significant backing for the project and its future development.

Toko Token

Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that is able to take real-world data and supply it to on-chain applications, while also connecting APIs to smart-contracts to facilitate the exchange of information between on-chain and off-chain data sources.

By supplying reputable, verifiable real-world data to blockchains, Band Protocol unlocks a range of new use cases for developers to explore — since they can now use any type of real-world data as part of their decentralized application (DApp) logic, including sports, weather, random numbers, price feed data and more.

Band Protocol initially launched as an ERC-20 project on the Ethereum blockchain in September 2019, but transitioned to the Cosmos network in June 2020 with the release of Band Protocol 2.0. The new protocol is built on BandChain using the Cosmos SDK. Oracle nodes on BandChain not only relay data but are also involved in block production/validation, giving them a dual role.

BAND is the native token of the Band Protocol ecosystem and is used as collateral by validators involved in fulfilling data requests, as well as the main medium of exchange on BandChain — being used to paying for private data.

Band Protocol

Curve is a decentralized exchange for stablecoins that uses an automated market maker (AMM) to manage liquidity.

Launched in January 2020, Curve is now synonymous with the decentralized finance (DeFi) phenomenon, and has seen significant growth in the second half of 2020.

In August, Curve launched a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), with CRV as its in-house token. The DAO uses Ethereum-based creation tool Aragon to connect multiple smart contracts used for users’ deposited liquidity. Issues such as governance, however, differ from Aragon in their weighting and other respects.

Curve DAO Token

Origin Protocol develops web3 technologies with the intention of bringing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) to the masses. The protocol’s unique tooling and diverse partnerships help in realizing these goals. Origin Protocol has two flagship products: Origin Story (governed by OGN), and Origin Dollar (governed by OGV).

Origin Story is a white label NFT marketplace solution that works with disrupters in various sectors by leveraging non-fungible tokens. The platform hosts NFT marketplaces and tooling in various industries, including the real estate, profile picture, music, art and entertainment industries.

Some of Origin Story’s partners include Roofstock onChain, Pudgy Penguins, Sappy Seals, Paris Hilton, 3LAU, BT, Inspiration4, and The Doge Pound. Origin Story Marketplaces seek to cast a wide net in various industries being impacted by NFTs, rather than focusing on any one area in particular. Investors may see OGN as the ‘picks and shovels’ approach to investing in NFTs.