In the past few weeks, the DEX landscape of the Aptos ecosystem is being completely rewritten by a newcomer.
That's right, I am referring to Hyperion. A hybrid DEX that has been online for only 3 months and has yet to issue a token, is overwhelming established competitors—Thala, LiquidSwap, and Cellana Finance—at an astonishing speed.
I checked the latest data from DefiLlama, and Hyperion's total transaction volume in the past 7 days reached $448 million, not only maintaining the top spot among Aptos DEXs but also growing +51.63% month-over-month. In comparison, Thala dropped by 52% during the same period, and Cellana plummeted nearly 96%. Data doesn't lie; the landscape is being restructured.
Why can't the three major established projects withstand Hyperion's fierce attack?
Let's take a look at the competitors' trump cards:
Thala: A comprehensive DeFi protocol offering AMM + stablecoins, with its governance token $THL now live, achieving a TVL of $162M, making it one of the largest projects in Aptos TVL. However, its 24h trading volume is only $32M, with a drop of over 50% in 7 days, indicating that although funds are locked, active users are quietly disappearing.
LiquidSwap: An Aptos native AMM developed by Pontem, which once had over a million users and billions in trading volume. Without a native token, its development is becoming conservative, with only $800,000 in 24h trading.
Cellana Finance: A community-based DEX supported by the Ve(3,3) model, focusing on locking assets and voting governance incentives. However, the current price of the token $CELL is visible to all, and liquidity and activity have significantly declined.
So what is Hyperion relying on?
Not relying on airdrops and empty promises, but a combination of product design and user growth.
1️⃣ Advanced mechanism: Hyperion employs a hybrid mechanism of CLMM + Orderbook, which means concentrated liquidity + order matching, satisfying both professional market makers and improving the trading experience for ordinary users.
2️⃣ Comprehensive incentives: The DRIPs point system covers trading, market making, invitations, and content creation, making it the most comprehensive growth incentive mechanism currently on Aptos.
3️⃣ User-oriented: Hyperion focuses on incentives for 'usage behavior'—this means the project values user contributions more than just pure locking, making it healthier.
How specifically to play? I've written very detailed practical tutorials, feel free to check it out 👉 https://x.com/AirdropAlchemis/status/1918347942748131837
Not the number one in TVL, but the DEX that is truly being 'used'.
As of May 21, Hyperion's TVL is $73.41M, ranking 6th across the Aptos ecosystem, and second among DEXs only to Thala ($162.31M) and Cellana ($48.39M). At first glance, it is still far from being the protocol with the most locked assets.
But if we look at trading volume—Hyperion's transaction value reached $448M in the past 7 days, which is 2.4 times that of Thala and nearly 180 times that of Cellana.
In other words, while more projects have locked in more money, these funds haven't been utilized; whereas Hyperion's funds have generated real transactions and fees through high-frequency flows, demonstrating strong activity and capital utilization.
TVL vs Volume Utilization Comparison Chart
This is the more essential adoption signal in the DeFi world: it's not about how much is locked, but how much is used. TVL is a savings book, while Volume is a cash flow statement. One has money, while the other knows how to use it; users are voting for Hyperion with their actual behavior.
Every DeFi chain will go through a round of power replacement.
From Serum to Jupiter in Solana;
From Sushi to Uniswap V3 to Camelot in Arbitrum;
Aptos, and now it's Hyperion's turn.
Of course, the battle is not over, TGE has not yet occurred, but the trend is clear: Hyperion is becoming the new core of DeFi for Aptos.