The team behind market analytics platform DEXTools has closed 8 million USD in combined token funding for PERPTools, a decentralized perpetual futures exchange that pairs an order-book DEX with autonomous AI trading agents and a prediction product. The rounds, announced on Oct. 1, arrive after the platform booked 240 million USD in trading volume during private beta testing.
Two rounds, two valuations
According to details shared with crypto.news, PERPTools first raised 3 million USD in a pre-seed round that valued the project at 30 million USD fully diluted. DEXTools Ventures and Orderly Network led that round, which closed in December 2025 after fundraising began a month earlier. A 5 million USD seed round followed in early 2026 at an 80 million USD valuation, with BigBrain Holdings, the NEAR Foundation, Animoca Brands, Sfermion and Shima Capital joining the cap table.
The structure reflects a deliberate bet on strategic capital rather than passive money. DEXTools contributes an existing analytics platform used by roughly 30 million traders, while Orderly Network supplies the omnichain liquidity layer that settles trades through a shared order book across supported networks, removing the need for users to bridge assets between chains manually.
By embedding directly into the analytics platform and plugging into Orderly’s omnichain engine, we solved the cold start problem before we even launched. 240 million USD in beta volume proves that when you remove the friction between discovery and execution, traders receive the best experience possible.
Evgen Tokarev, CEO of PERPTools
Three live products before the token
PERPTools is already operating three products on mainnet ahead of a token generation event scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026. The core Perp DEX supports long and short positions with leverage and cross margin while keeping non-custodial access to funds, with settlement routed through Orderly’s central limit order book infrastructure.
The second product, AI Arena, is a marketplace for autonomous trading agents that operate inside the same liquidity environment as human traders. Users can configure an agent in about five minutes by selecting a risk profile, setting leverage limits and describing a strategy in natural language. Other users can then deposit USDC into an agent’s strategy, with performance rankings calculated from verified 30-day onchain profit-and-loss data. The approach echoes a broader industry shift — MetaMask shipped its own Agent Wallet in June — but PERPTools is unusual in hosting the agent marketplace and the exchange within a single trading environment.
The third product, Tap Prediction, turns live perpetual price feeds into short-term prediction markets. Traders pick a cell on a price grid with entry positions from as little as 0.10 USD and potential payouts of up to 25 times the stake. The company says the product already carries a prize pool above 1 million USD and is generating revenue before the token launch.
Riding the perp DEX expansion
The funding lands as decentralized derivatives venues take a steadily larger share of perpetual futures activity. CoinGecko data published in May showed the share of perpetual futures open interest held on DEXs climbing from 3.6 percent at the start of 2025 to 13.5 percent in early 2026, with top perp DEX open interest rising from 1.19 billion USD at the beginning of 2024 to 14.99 billion USD by the end of January 2026. Centralized exchanges still dominate — Binance held 33 percent of the global market in the first four months of 2026 and OKX another 15 percent — but the trend line favors decentralized venues. PERPTools estimates decentralized perpetual exchanges currently process more than 10 billion USD in daily volume.
For context, Bitcoin traded near 83,953 USD and Ethereum near 2,707 USD at 12:00 UTC on Oct. 1, according to CoinGecko, with derivatives demand tracking a 42.5 percent Bitcoin rally in the third quarter that analysts say still requires stronger spot participation to sustain.
Team and what comes next
Tokarev, who previously worked on trading infrastructure at DEXTools, leads the project alongside CTO Denys Hrechko, formerly of Everstake, and CMO Wael Rajab, who serves as CEO of DEXTools Ventures. Frederic Fernández, co-founder and CMO of DEXTools, framed the exchange as the natural extension of a platform where users already discover tokens. PERPTools is the next chapter, where the trade itself happens without ever leaving, he said.
Orderly CEO and co-founder Ran Yi added that PERPTools represents the type of application the network’s liquidity infrastructure was designed to support, precisely because it enters the market with an existing user base rather than starting from zero liquidity.
The company has not disclosed a specific date for its Q4 token generation event, but says the launch will follow the rollout of its three existing products, meaning the exchange, agent marketplace and prediction game are all expected to be operating before the token enters circulation. Between now and then, the plan is continued integration of trading execution into the DEXTools ecosystem, with Orderly handling liquidity and settlement.
Investors are effectively underwriting two theses at once: that AI-mediated trading becomes a default interface for retail derivatives, and that the discovery-to-execution funnel built by analytics platforms can be converted into an exchange business. The 240 million USD beta figure suggests early traction, but the real test begins with the token, when a public audience judges whether friction-free execution and agent-driven strategies justify an 80 million USD valuation in an increasingly crowded perp DEX field.
240M volume in beta from traders already inside DEXTools is a cheat code. the funnel is literally already built into the app
^ exactly. cold start solved by embedding in an app 30 million traders already open daily. unfair advantage tbh
30M FDV pre-seed to 80M seed in like three months is wild. seed investors already up 2.6x on paper before the TGE even hits Q4
The 240M beta volume with no token incentive announced is the stat that stands out. If those numbers hold post-launch this is a real exchange, not a points farm.
8M raised and 240M volume in private beta? someone is farming points already lol. orderly shared orderbook does decent numbers tho
valuation went 30M FDV to 80M in like 3 months between rounds. seed guys basically got a 2.6x markup before the token even exists, wonder who the exit liquidity is here
2.6x on paper means nothing until the token actually trades. pre-seed at 30M was the risky buy, seed at 80M is just paying for confirmed hype
@capitulation_kim hard disagree on this one. the 240M beta volume happened before the seed markup, so the 80M valuation at least has activity data behind it. most seeds this size are pure narrative
the exit liquidity is the 30M dextools users funneled in at TGE. thats literally the whole pitch
funneled in at TGE is somehow the bull case AND the bear case in one sentence lol
Three live products on mainnet before the token is more than most launches can say. Q4 2026 will be the real test though.
everyone dunking on the valuation and skipping the Orderly part. shared orderbook means liquidity exists on day one, 8M buys a lot of market making
30 million traders on the DEXTools platform is the real asset in this deal. If even 1% convert to PERPTools users that is a top 10 perp dex overnight
ai trading agents on a perp dex… so the bot gets liquidated instead of me. progress i guess
lmao exactly. give the bot a hard leverage cap so when it degens its own parameters its only money i already wrote off
lmao accurate. tho ai arena agents competing in the same orderbook is at least a more entertaining way to lose money
progress i guess lol. fr tho an agent with a hard leverage cap makes better decisions than i do at 3am