Perps Volume Falls Across Major Chains While Tron Rises

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Perpetual futures volume fell week-over-week on five of six tracked chains between July 27 and August 2, 2026. Base, BSC, Solana, Ethereum, and Bitcoin all declined, while Tron rose 56.5%. Separately, active-address counts on Ethereum, Base, and Bitcoin didn’t move in lockstep with falling perps and TVL figures, suggesting participation didn’t uniformly track derivatives activity this week.

Perpetual futures volume declined week-over-week across five of the six blockchains tracked in this dataset between July 27 and August 2, 2026. Base led the pullback, down 72.3% ($362.1 million to $100.3 million), followed by BSC at –60.3% ($17.62 million to $6.99 million), Solana at –56.4% ($1.295 billion to $565.09 million), Ethereum at –32.7% ($1.435 billion to $966.11 million), and Bitcoin, whose far smaller perps market slipped from $10.43 million to $7.31 million.

Tron moved the opposite way, with perps volume rising 56.5%, from $64.19 million to $100.43 million, even as its DEX volume fell 43.1% over the same week. It was the only chain in the dataset to post a perps increase.

Ethereum’s Rising Transaction Count Complicates the Falling-Activity Picture

Ethereum‘s total value locked eased 4.1% for the week, alongside the perps decline noted above. But the network’s other usage signals pulled in different directions: active addresses fell 20.2%, from 512,433 to 408,891, while daily transactions rose 37.4%, from 1.87 million to 2.57 million. Fewer active addresses but higher transaction counts, a pattern that cuts against reading falling perps volume as a simple sign of broader network cooldown.

Tron’s DEX Activity Cools as Perps Diverge

Tron‘s total value locked held roughly flat, easing 0.8% to $4.849 billion. Its DEX volume drop of 43.1%, set against its perps increase, derivatives activity strengthened while DEX volume weakened. It was the only chain in the set to show that particular split.

TRON Expands Web3 Outreach Through Stanford Visit

Amid TRON’s contrasting on-chain performance this week, founder Justin Sun highlighted the network’s engagement at Stanford, where TRON DAO discussed global retail adoption, the TRON AI Accelerator Program, and the future of Web3 with students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. According to TRON DAO, the sessions focused on connecting with the next generation of blockchain builders.

BSC Sees Its Sharpest Metric Move in Perps, Not TVL

BSC‘s total value locked was essentially unchanged, down 1.2%. BSC’s largest weekly move came from perps activity, which fell 60.3%, while TVL and other tracked metrics remained comparatively stable. That contrasts with chains like Solana, where the decline showed up across multiple metrics at once.

Solana Is the Only Chain to Decline Across Every Metric Tracked

Solana stood apart from the rest of the dataset: total value locked, token market cap, perps volume, active addresses, and daily transactions all fell over the week, mcap down 6.5%, addresses down 23.6%, transactions down 17.8%, alongside the perps drop noted above. No other chain in the set showed uniform decline across every tracked figure.

Base’s Address Uptick Doesn’t Match Its Perps Slide

Base‘s total value locked slipped 2.4% for the week. Within L2 activity specifically, active addresses actually rose 3.3%, from 256,968 to 265,485, even as the chain’s perps volume fell 72.3%. Derivatives activity and on-chain participation moved in opposite directions on Base this week.

Bitcoin’s Address Growth Suggests Participation Didn’t Follow Value Locked Down

Bitcoin‘s total value locked fell 18.2% for the week, the steepest TVL decline in the dataset, and token market cap slipped 3.9%. Active addresses moved the other way, rising 41.5%, from 569,782 to 806,292, the largest address increase of any chain tracked. Combined with Ethereum’s and Base’s numbers above, address and participation counts didn’t uniformly fall alongside value-locked and perps figures this week, even as derivatives activity cooled almost everywhere.

The data in this report is sourced from DeFiLlama, a leading DeFi analytics platform that provides real-time data on total value locked (TVL), DEX trading volume, stablecoin activity, and other on-chain metrics across hundreds of blockchain networks and protocols.