Recently, more and more Crypto projects have been shutting down, but StandX is a relatively unusual case. Most projects go through fundraising, token issuance, and price declines, eventually ceasing maintenance after users gradually drift away; StandX, however, chose to end things directly before its TGE.
Over the past year, Perp DEX has been one of the most crowded entrepreneurial directions in Crypto. Projects such as Aster, Lighter, and Variational have appeared one after another, and the market is still constantly searching for "the next Hyperliquid."
Just as the entire sector was still accelerating, StandX chose to stop.
A few months ago, StandX was still expanding rapidly
StandX initially built the yield-bearing stablecoin DUSD, and only shifted its focus to Perp DEX in the second half of 2025. Alpha launched in October 2025, and Mainnet officially opened in November, allowing users to trade perpetual contracts using DUSD as margin while continuing to earn DUSD yield.
StandX truly began to grow rapidly, catching the best period for Perp DEX as well.
With the wealth effect of Hyperliquid and Aster, the market began constantly searching for "the next Hyperliquid," with capital and users flooding into Perp DEX, and StandX rode the wave into a growth phase.
After entering 2026, StandX's data grew rapidly. In January, single-day Perp volume was about $158 million, and after launching Position Yield in April, OI grew from about $25 million to more than $100 million. By June 28, StandX once climbed to fourth place in DeFiLlama's Perp DEX daily trading volume; in July, the official team disclosed about 235,000 users and $700 million in daily trading volume.
At the time, the team was still continuing to expand, successively launching products such as Universal Markets, Community Maker Yield, and Community Vault, attempting to move from an ordinary Perp DEX toward a more open derivatives market.
No one expected that a project still in its growth phase would hit the end button just as it was entering its golden period.
Perp DEX is hot, but mid-tier projects are finding it increasingly difficult
The entire Perp DEX market is still growing, with platforms like Hyperliquid, Aster, and Lighter continuously competing for users and liquidity, while new projects like PaperTrade keep emerging.
Liquidity itself is an expensive business: you need to bring in market makers, subsidize makers, and rely on Points, rebates, and airdrop expectations to compete for trading users. The larger the scale, the higher the ongoing costs required.
As a result, many projects have recently started rethinking their approach, no longer building a complete trading and liquidity system from scratch.
For example, TradeXYZ builds directly on Hyperliquid's HyperCore via HIP-3; the recently launched PaperTrade directly reads Hyperliquid BBO prices and uses its own LP to complete trades.
In contrast, StandX chose to build its own order book, and has never had VC backing, relying on the team's own funds. To reach its current scale, how much does it actually cost to maintain such a liquidity system?
TGE is gone, how do you account for previous investments?
After deciding not to issue a token, the most direct question is: what happens to the costs incurred for Points and TGE expectations?
Over the past year, many users traded continuously to farm Points, genuinely bearing fees, slippage, funding rates, and capital occupation costs. If the token ultimately isn't issued, these costs naturally don't disappear.
Just now, StandX provided its remediation plan: a one-time DUSD airdrop to the community, with no lock-up, covering historical participation including Pre-deposit, Alpha, Mainnet trading, market making, and referrals.
The official explanation states that most past revenue has already been returned to users through SIP-2 and SIP-3, so this time all remaining project revenue will be used for the airdrop, supplemented by additional funding from the team.
Airdrop queries will open on October 26, claims will begin on November 1, and the deadline is December 31.
Final thoughts
StandX's closure does not mean that Perp DEXs are done for. On the contrary, this sector is still very hot, and new projects keep emerging.
But StandX provides a rare sample: it didn't fail to build a product, nor did it completely lack users. Instead, after already generating trading volume and reaching a certain scale, it actively chose to stop.
Not launching a token will of course disappoint many users who waited a long time. But at least compared with those projects that clearly have made little progress yet keep stringing the community along with Points, airdrop expectations, and "TGE is coming soon," StandX's handling this time can be considered decent.
It did not repackage a story that had already decided to end as a TGE and hand it to the secondary market. Instead, it used remaining revenue and team funds to compensate the community, at least leaving StandX with a relatively dignified ending.
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