September 24, 2025 by Nick Forster
It’s been a violent start to the week for the majors, with BTC and ETH retesting $110K and $4K respectively. At the same time, perp DEX tokens have gone ballistic.
$ASTER, a BSC-based perpetual DEX that recently received social support from Binance founder CZ, surged nearly 300% – jumping from $0.53 to $2.03 at the time of writing. Its total value locked (TVL) also skyrocketed to nearly $1.7 billion.
$AVNT (Avantis), a perp DEX built on Base that also supports real-world assets, more than doubled over the weekend, climbing from $1.08 to $2.21.
This wave of interest points to a new DeFi trend: the rise of "alt hyperliquids." Much like alt L1s in the 2020-2022 cycle, these projects are positioning themselves as liquidity hubs, aiming to dominate across perps, prediction markets, spot, and beyond.
Meanwhile, the broader crypto market has been hit with a bloody start to the week.
ETH volatility spiked sharply on Monday from 57% to just shy of 70%, as markets tumbled with almost $1 billion worth of longs liquidated.
ETH volatility
BTC volatility also rose 3% to ~30%. Over the past 30 days, BTC volatility has been notably below average. That may soon change, with October expected to bring more action, especially from digital asset treasuries (DATs) and the intensifying “perp DEX wars”.
BTC implied volatility box plots
Note: Orange line is BTC
On Derive, traders are positioning for a major upside. For BTC, there's a large cluster of calls around $145K/$155K/$170K for the October 31 expiry. For ETH, traders are betting on a 10%+ move with concentration at $5K/$5.2K strikes.
Price predictions
By October 31, we’re seeing a 22% chance of ETH to reach over $5K, and a 34% chance of BTC hitting above $120K.
By the end of December, there’s a 12% chance ETH will reach above $7K and a 26% chance BTC will reach over $135K.
Expect volatility to rise and the battle for DeFi liquidity to escalate.
