Perp DEX Airdrop History
What perp DEX farming has actually paid: every major airdrop, its size at TGE, and the lesson it left behind. Use it to calibrate the live programs on the comparison table.
The benchmark. No VC allocation — 31% of supply straight to points farmers, and HYPE's rally later pushed the drop past $7B.
The retro that invented perp farming — early traders averaged five figures for volume they'd already done.
~12M points converted at roughly 21 LIT per point — one of the largest distributions ever, paid automatically with no claim.
Huge headline number, but extremely broad eligibility diluted the average wallet to a few hundred dollars.
The 2025 breakout: the 704M-token first unlock listed near $0.08 and ran past $2.26 within a week — a 27x that turned a modest drop into billions, with more stages still vesting.
Solid size, messy execution — uneven allocations for equal points drew community backlash at TGE.
Lucrative but ugly: the token surged 1,200%+ after the drop, pushing individual claims into six figures — amid insider-allocation allegations the team denied.
Fully claimable on day one with no vesting games; the trader slice alone was worth ~$60M, and 40%+ of supply stayed reserved for the community.
25% of supply to the community (24% points, 1% Mad Lads) with no insider allocation at launch — multi-season farming paid off.
A reminder that not every perp DEX drops big — a 3% allocation caps what farming can pay regardless of your share.
Solana perps retro that weighted long-term genuine usage over last-minute volume grinding.
Jumped 132% on launch day, then bled over 90% as Solana perps consolidated elsewhere — the team moved on to build Bullet.
Big points campaign, weak token: HOME slid steadily after TGE — a reminder that app traction doesn't automatically become token demand.
Raised the airdrop from 7% to 8.5%, then a $7M oracle exploit weeks after TGE crushed the token — funds were recovered, the price never was.
The Lyra rebrand's drop was modest and drifted lower — rebrands rarely reset a token's trajectory.
Perp infrastructure rather than a venue — the drop was modest and the token slid as farmers rotated to consumer-facing DEXes.
Decent early perp DEX, long token bleed — the tech and team were later absorbed into Ink's Nado, which is farmable today.
Cosmos perps whose token collapsed over 95% — farming a venue nobody trades on pays in tokens nobody wants.
| Protocol | TGE | Airdrop % of supply | Value at TGE | Recipients | Takeaway |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyperliquid HYPE | Nov 2024 | 31% | ~$1.2B | ~94k wallets | The benchmark. No VC allocation — 31% of supply straight to points farmers, and HYPE's rally later pushed the drop past $7B. |
| dYdX DYDX | Sep 2021 | 7.5% | ~$750M | ~64k traders | The retro that invented perp farming — early traders averaged five figures for volume they'd already done. |
| Lighter LIT | Dec 2025 | 25% | ~$650M | Points holders | ~12M points converted at roughly 21 LIT per point — one of the largest distributions ever, paid automatically with no claim. |
| Jupiter JUP | Jan 2024 | 10% | ~$650M | ~955k wallets | Huge headline number, but extremely broad eligibility diluted the average wallet to a few hundred dollars. |
| Aster ASTER | Sep 2025 | 8.8% | — | Points farmers | The 2025 breakout: the 704M-token first unlock listed near $0.08 and ran past $2.26 within a week — a 27x that turned a modest drop into billions, with more stages still vesting. |
| edgeX EDGE | Mar 2026 | 25% | ~$195M | Points + NFT holders | Solid size, messy execution — uneven allocations for equal points drew community backlash at TGE. |
| MYX Finance MYX | 2025 | 14.7% | ~$170M | Points farmers | Lucrative but ugly: the token surged 1,200%+ after the drop, pushing individual claims into six figures — amid insider-allocation allegations the team denied. |
| Avantis AVNT | Sep 2025 | 12.5% | — | Traders + LPs | Fully claimable on day one with no vesting games; the trader slice alone was worth ~$60M, and 40%+ of supply stayed reserved for the community. |
| Backpack BP | Mar 2026 | 25% | — | ~450k across seasons | 25% of supply to the community (24% points, 1% Mad Lads) with no insider allocation at launch — multi-season farming paid off. |
| Aevo AEVO | Mar 2024 | 3% | ~$80M | — | A reminder that not every perp DEX drops big — a 3% allocation caps what farming can pay regardless of your share. |
| Drift DRIFT | May 2024 | 10% | ~$60M | — | Solana perps retro that weighted long-term genuine usage over last-minute volume grinding. |
| Zeta Markets ZEX | Jun 2024 | 10% | — | Traders + stakers | Jumped 132% on launch day, then bled over 90% as Solana perps consolidated elsewhere — the team moved on to build Bullet. |
| Defi App HOME | Jun 2025 | — | — | Points farmers | Big points campaign, weak token: HOME slid steadily after TGE — a reminder that app traction doesn't automatically become token demand. |
| KiloEx KILO | Mar 2025 | 8.5% | — | — | Raised the airdrop from 7% to 8.5%, then a $7M oracle exploit weeks after TGE crushed the token — funds were recovered, the price never was. |
| Derive DRV | Jan 2025 | — | — | Lyra users + farmers | The Lyra rebrand's drop was modest and drifted lower — rebrands rarely reset a token's trajectory. |
| Orderly ORDER | Aug 2024 | — | — | — | Perp infrastructure rather than a venue — the drop was modest and the token slid as farmers rotated to consumer-facing DEXes. |
| Vertex VRTX | Nov 2023 | — | — | Early traders | Decent early perp DEX, long token bleed — the tech and team were later absorbed into Ink's Nado, which is farmable today. |
| Levana LVN | Oct 2023 | — | — | — | Cosmos perps whose token collapsed over 95% — farming a venue nobody trades on pays in tokens nobody wants. |
What history says about farming today
The pattern across every major perp DEX airdrop is consistent: allocation size and recipient count matter more than headline FDV. Hyperliquid and Lighter paid life-changing amounts per wallet because 25–31% of supply went to a relatively small set of genuine traders, while Jupiter's near-million-wallet eligibility diluted a similar headline number to a few hundred dollars each. Small allocations like Aevo's 3% capped payouts no matter how early anyone farmed. And the graveyard half of the table — Zeta, Levana, KiloEx, Derive — shows the other failure mode: farming a venue that loses the volume war pays out in a token that bleeds from day one. Roughly a third of concluded perp DEX airdrops were genuinely worth the effort.
That's why the comparison table leads with earliness and dilution: entering before or early in a points season, on a venue with real emissions and manageable competition, is the setup that produced the best historical outcomes. Model your own numbers with the points calculator.
Values are approximate day-one figures from public reporting and may differ from final distribution totals. Past airdrops don't guarantee future results; nothing here is financial advice.