Latest Solana perp volume explodes 65% amid shrinking spot activity in Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency Image by CryptoSlate GMTrade accounted for 77% of Solana’s tracked weekly perpetuals volume, as trading incentives raise questions about sustained demand. Editor-in-Chief CryptoSlate

Nov. 11, 2026 at 2:10 am GMT

GMTrade accounted for about 77% of reported weekly perpetuals turnover in DefiLlama’s Solana table on November 10. Spot DEX turnover fell 5% while stablecoin market capitalization declined 4.38%, limiting evidence of a broader trading revival. GT redemption has conditions, and the turnover surge alone establishes neither rising open interest nor fresh SOL purchases. Solana’s jump in tracked perpetuals trading is concentrated at GMTrade, a derivatives venue that accounts for about 77% of reported weekly turnover in DefiLlama’s Solana table.

Spot trading moved the other way, leaving a narrower demand picture than the derivatives headline suggests. In the Nov. 10 snapshot, the Solana dashboard reports nearly $9 billion in seven-day perpetuals turnover, up 65.29% from the preceding week.

GMTrade, listed by DefiLlama as GMX Solana, contributed nearly $7 billion, with a displayed weekly increase of 105%. Over the same dashboard’s seven-day comparisons, spot decentralized exchange turnover fell 5% to $9.9 billion, and stablecoin market capitalization fell 4.38% to $14.5 billion. 02 / Trading activity or outstanding exposure? GMTrade’s share of seven-day reported trade notional, calculated from rounded displayed totals.

Turnover counts trades; open interest counts outstanding notional. Neither measures fresh collateral or new SOL buying. Shares use DefiLlama’s Solana classification, excluding Pacifica turnover classified Off Chain. Perps cover multiple underlying markets. Turnover is a seven-day flow; open interest and stablecoin market capitalization are stocks.

The snapshot establishes no weekly open-interest trend or incentive causation. DefiLlama’s Pacifica page attributes its total value locked (TVL) to Solana but classifies its $2.6 billion in weekly perpetuals turnover as “off-chain,” a turnover outside the Solana table. Concentrated turnover and trading rewards Dividing GMTrade’s reported weekly turnover by the table’s total gives an approximately 77% share. The rounded totals and growth rates also imply that GMTrade’s weekly increase was roughly as large as the entire table’s gain.

GMTrade’s trading documentation allows SOL exposure backed by either wrapped SOL or USDC collateral. A dollar of leveraged turnover cannot simply be counted as a dollar of new SOL buying. GMTrade’s GT documentation describes points earned through trading, liquidity provision and referrals, with conditional treasury buybacks offering a route to USDC. The announced Season 2 terms tie a referrer’s sellable quota to GT earned through referred traders’ trading, so earning points is different from receiving an unrestricted cash rebate. The published fee documentation lists basic crypto-position opening or closing charges of 0.02% or 0.024%, depending on whether a trade improves the balance of longs and shorts. The Season 2 announcement also described a fee-structure change. The incentives don’t show how much of the weekly increase they caused, or how much trading would persist without them.

GMTrade’s connection to GMX extends beyond the label. GM Labs said in a Sept. 16 governance post that GMX Solana had been integrated into GMX, but GT points remain distinct from the GMX token. In a Nov.  » …

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Carla Contass

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