What are perpetual futures?

Perpetual futures (perps) are leveraged crypto contracts with no expiry date. Unlike traditional futures that settle monthly, perps stay open until you close them. A funding rate (paid between longs and shorts every few hours) keeps the perp price aligned with the spot market.

What is leverage in perps trading?

Leverage lets you control a position larger than your collateral. With 10x leverage, $100 controls a $1,000 position. A 10% adverse price move would liquidate the position. Higher leverage means smaller price moves cause liquidation — most beginners should not exceed 3–5x.

What is liquidation in perps?

Liquidation is when your position is force-closed because losses exceed your collateral. The exchange or protocol takes your remaining collateral to cover the position. Use stop-losses, low leverage, and isolated margin to protect your account from cascading liquidations.

Are decentralised perps safer than centralised perps?

They are different. Centralised perps (like Bybit, Binance) have deeper liquidity but custodial risk. Decentralised perps (like dYdX, GMX, Hyperliquid) are non-custodial — you trade from your own wallet — but liquidity is thinner and smart contract risk exists. Steyble routes to the most liquid decentralised perps available.

What is a DeFi aggregator?

A DeFi aggregator is a platform that routes your crypto swaps across hundreds of decentralised exchanges (DEXes) simultaneously to find the best rate and lowest slippage. Instead of trading on a single DEX like Uniswap, an aggregator like Steyble splits your trade across multiple pools and chains to maximise your output.

What is a crypto super app?

A crypto super app is a single non-custodial platform that combines every DeFi service — token swapping, staking, perpetuals trading, prediction markets, copy trading, cross-chain bridging, and crypto cards — in one interface. Steyble is a crypto super app, meaning you never need to switch between multiple DeFi applications.

Is Steyble self-custodial?

Yes. Steyble is entirely non-custodial and self-custodial. You hold your private keys at all times. Steyble provides the interface and smart contract routing, but never holds, controls, or has access to your assets. Every transaction requires your explicit wallet signature.

How do prediction markets work in crypto?

Crypto prediction markets let you buy or sell shares in the outcome of real-world events using on-chain smart contracts. If you buy a 'Yes' share at $0.35, you receive $1 if the event occurs (a $0.65 profit) or lose $0.35 if it does not. Markets cover crypto prices, elections, sports results, and macro events. Steyble's prediction markets are non-custodial — your funds remain in your wallet until settlement.

What are perpetual futures in crypto?

Perpetual futures (perps) are leveraged crypto trading contracts with no expiry date. Unlike traditional futures that expire monthly, perps let you hold long or short positions indefinitely. A periodic funding rate keeps the perp price aligned with spot. Steyble perpetuals run on decentralised smart contracts — you trade directly from your own wallet with full transparency into liquidation parameters.

How does copy trading work on Steyble?

Copy trading on Steyble automatically mirrors the on-chain trades of verified top-performing wallet strategies. You choose the wallets you want to copy, set your position sizing and risk limits, and Steyble replicates their trades in real time. Unlike centralised copy trading, Steyble is non-custodial — you never give up control of your funds.

What is the best way to earn passive income with crypto in 2026?

The best methods for passive crypto income in 2026 are: (1) liquid staking ETH or SOL at 3.5–8% APY, (2) lending stablecoins on lending protocols at 5–9% APY, (3) non-custodial copy trading to mirror proven wallet strategies, (4) providing liquidity to stablecoin pools at 3–6% APY, and (5) on-chain prediction markets for event-driven returns. Steyble provides access to all five methods in a single platform.

What is the best DEX aggregator in 2026?

The best DEX aggregators in 2026 route across 15+ blockchains and 100+ liquidity sources with MEV protection. Steyble's swap aggregator covers 250+ liquidity sources across Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Base, and more — consistently delivering better rates than going directly to any single DEX. For large swaps, using an aggregator saves 0.5–2% per transaction.

Non-Custodial Order Books: How Hyperliquid, dYdX and Lighter Differ

Three credible non-custodial order-book exchanges run on three different architectures. Here is how their performance, security and decentralisation trade off.

The case that 'centralised exchanges always have better UX and decentralised exchanges always have weaker UX' was decisively broken in 2024-2025 by a wave of high-performance non-custodial order-book venues. Three of them — Hyperliquid, dYdX v4, and Lighter — reached meaningful volume on three different architectural bets. Comparing them tells you a lot about where on-chain perpetuals are heading.

Hyperliquid

Architecture: custom L1 with HyperBFT consensus — built specifically for an on-chain order book
Block time: ~70ms — the order book matches and updates faster than most CEXs
Throughput: 100k+ orders per second sustained, sub-second user-perceived latency
Self-custody model: user funds live in a margin account on the L1; user signs orders with their key
Fee model: zero gas for order placement (paid by the protocol from trading fees), maker-rebate trading fees
Liquidity: as of 2026 the largest non-custodial perps venue by volume — frequently exceeds $10B daily

dYdX v4

Architecture: Cosmos SDK app-chain with a CometBFT validator set
Block time: ~1 second — slower than Hyperliquid but still well below Ethereum
Order matching: validator-side off-chain matching with on-chain settlement — orders are not posted to the chain individually
Self-custody model: user signs orders with a session key derived from their main wallet
Decentralisation: full validator set; governance via DYDX token
Trade-off: lower order-book latency than Hyperliquid in exchange for broader validator decentralisation

Lighter

Architecture: zk-rollup-based order book — orders settle on Ethereum L1 with succinct zk proofs
Block time: variable — depends on proof generation cadence
Decentralisation: inherits Ethereum L1 security via the zk proof verification
Strength: highest end-of-day verifiability, no validator-set trust assumption
Trade-off: higher latency than Hyperliquid for orders to be irrevocably settled

Choosing Between Them

Maximum performance, deepest liquidity, lowest latency: Hyperliquid
Cosmos-native ecosystem, governance participation, mature validator set: dYdX v4
Maximum verifiability, Ethereum-rooted security guarantees: Lighter
Stable mature trading volumes for new entrants: Hyperliquid still leads in 2026
Long-tail markets and niche perpetuals: increasingly fragmented across all three

Steyble Perps Routing

Steyble Perps routes user orders to whichever non-custodial venue has the best combination of price, depth, and latency for the requested instrument — typically Hyperliquid for majors, with Lighter and dYdX picked for specific instruments where they offer better liquidity. The user sees a single self-custodial perps surface that hides the venue selection complexity, which is the right separation between user experience and the underlying infrastructure layer.

What These Three Venues Share

Self-custody throughout — user funds never leave a margin account they control
Maker-rebate fee models that incentivise tight quoting — translates to better fill prices for takers
Insurance funds well above 5% of open interest in normal regimes
Open API access for algorithmic and AI-agent trading
Oracle-based mark prices that resist single-venue manipulation

What to Watch Going Forward

Two trends will shape this category through 2027. First: order-book matching latency continues to compress, with sub-50ms becoming the new baseline; this favours venues with custom L1 architecture (Hyperliquid) over those running on shared chains. Second: regulatory scrutiny on perpetuals — particularly in the US — will likely force venue redomiciling, and the venues that adopted clean self-custody postures earliest will face the lightest friction. Watch the venue's geographic footprint and licensing posture as carefully as you watch its trading metrics.