Perpetuals trading
Crafting a world class perpetuals trading experience used by 100,000 traders and processing over $6 billion of annual volume.
Product Designer
Product Manager
Feb → Apr (3 months)
Final outcome
Perps is a core driver of revenue and user engagement for Defi App. It marked an important strategic milestone on our journey to becoming ‘Crypto’s Everything App’.
$6B
of volume
$3.5M
in revenue
100K+
traders
Why perpetuals?
From the moment we launched our beta in 2024, we received countless requests from our community asking about when we’d have a perps product. Given that $500 billion of volume flowed through perps DEXs in 2024, this presented us a opportunity that to capture a portion of the pie.
Who are we building for?
We wanted to understand who we were actually building for and what we were going to build so conducted research understand the following:
1
Trading behaviours and mental models.
2
Volume and trading frequency.
3
The Hyperliquid experience.
4
Perps products and features.
Speaking to traders
We spoke to 14 traders with different habits and behaviours.
Pros
$10M+
Trades only on CEXs, needs deep liquidity, the fastest trade execution, and robust functionality.
Seasoned
$100K - $1M
We spoke to 14 traders who had vastly different habits and behaviours.
Newbies
<
$10K
Minimal trading experience, wants a good mobile experience, and is interested in perps, but low appetite for risk.
We ultimately decided to focus on building for ‘seasoned traders’ because they traded a significant amount of volume which provided a greater opportunity to generate revenue.
The perps landscape
We did a deep dive at over 15 perps products. There were several commonalities between all of them but many differed in philosophy and order interface.
Existing fundamentals
We were building on Hyperliquid’s API so we conducted usability testing with 7 seasoned traders on Hyperliquid’s interface to understand UX improvements and new functionality.
1
More order types outside of market/limits.
2
Customizeable trades (set multiple TP/SLs).
3
A more efficient trading interface.
4
A better mobile experience so they can manage their trades on the go.
5
More transparency on how settings impact their trades and positions.
Building the beta
We were fortunate enough to have a 1.5 month long beta to test the UX and discover edge cases. We conducted internal testing and built the first iteration.
Initial feedback
Our beta group consisted of 20 seasoned traders who provided us with great feedback.
Order form
Too many options on the order form causing users to feel overwhelmed.
Order form
Customizeable trades (set multiple TP/SLs).
Order form
Traders think in token size, not dollar value.
History
Trade history lacked clarity and information density - making scanning difficult.
Mobile
Mobile dashboard made trading slower. Users wanted everything to be one click away.
Mobile
The positions table on mobile had too many buttons and options.
Transparency
More transparency around their balance, PNL etc.
The iteration loop
Throughout the beta and over the next couple months, the product underwent several changes and improvements that would enhance the trading experience and provide utility to traders.
Reflections
We often think that uncluttered and minimalism equates to “the best UX”. While this isn’t a dangerous assumption, sometimes you work on projects that challenge this assumption. This project really emphasized the need to understand a user’s jobs to be done, mental models, and behaviours.
This was also my first time launching a product into beta which proved to be the ultimate form of usability testing. Gathering real data with real users using real money provides unparellelled insights.
© Chris Tran 2025 All Rights Reserved
Perpetuals trading
Crafting a world class perpetuals trading experience used by 100,000 traders and processing over $6 billion of volume.
Product Designer
Product Manager
Feb → Apr (3 months)
Outcome
Perps is a core driver of revenue and user engagement for Defi App. It marked an important strategic milestone on our journey to becoming ‘Crypto’s Everything App’.
$6B
of volume
$3.5M
in revenue
100K+
traders
Why perpetuals?
From the moment we launched our beta in 2024, we received countless requests from our community asking about when we’d have a perps product. Given that $500 billion of volume flowed through perps DEXs in 2024, this presented us a opportunity that to capture a portion of the pie.
Who are we building for?
We wanted to understand who we were actually building for and what we were going to build so conducted research understand the following:
1
Trading behaviours and mental models.
2
Volume and trading frequency.
3
The current Hyperliquid experience.
4
The perps landscape and feature expectations
Speaking to traders
We spoke to 14 traders with different habits and behaviours.
Pros
$10M+
Trades only on CEXs, needs deep liquidity, the fastest trade execution, and robust functionality.
Seasoned
$100K - $1M
We spoke to 14 traders who had vastly different habits and behaviours.
Newbies
<
$10K
Minimal trading experience, wants a good mobile experience, and is interested in perps, but low appetite for risk.
We ultimately decided to focus on building for ‘seasoned traders’ because they traded a significant amount of volume which provided a greater opportunity to generate revenue.
The perps landscape
We did a deep dive at over 15 perps products. There were several commonalities between all of them but many differed in philosophy and order interface.
Existing fundamentals
We were building on Hyperliquid’s API so we conducted usability testing with 7 seasoned traders on Hyperliquid’s interface to understand UX improvements and new functionality.
1
More order types outside of market/limits.
2
Customizeable trades (set multiple TP/SLs).
3
A more efficient trading interface.
4
A better mobile experience so they can manage their trades on the go.
5
More transparency on how settings impact their trades and positions.
Building the beta
We were fortunate enough to have a 1.5 month long beta to test the UX and discover edge cases. We conducted internal testing and built the first iteration.
Initial feedback
Our beta group consisted of 20 seasoned traders who provided us with great feedback.
Order form
Too many options on the order form causing users to feel overwhelmed.
Order form
Customizeable trades (set multiple TP/SLs).
Order form
Traders think in token size, not dollar value.
History
Trade history lacked clarity and scanning was difficult.
Mobile
Mobile dashboard made trading slower. Users wanted everything to be one click away.
Mobile
The positions table on mobile had too many buttons and options.
Transparency
More transparency around their balance, PNL etc.
The iteration loop
Throughout the beta and over the next couple months, the product underwent several changes and improvements that would enhance the trading experience and provide utility to traders.
Reflections
We often think that uncluttered and minimalism equates to “the best UX”. While this isn’t a dangerous assumption, sometimes you work on projects that challenge this assumption. This project really emphasized the need to understand a user’s jobs to be done, mental models, and behaviours.
This was also my first time launching a product into beta which proved to be the ultimate form of usability testing. Gathering real data with real users using real money provides unparellelled insights.
© Chris Tran 2025 All Rights Reserved
Perpetuals trading
Crafting a world class perpetuals trading experience used by 100,000 traders and processing over $6 billion of volume.
Designer
Product Manager
Feb → Apr (3 months)
Outcome
Perps is a core driver of revenue and user engagement for Defi App. It marked an important strategic milestone on our journey to becoming ‘Crypto’s Everything App’.
$6 billion
of volume
$3.5 million
in revenue
100,000+
traders
Why perpetuals?
From the moment we launched our beta in 2024, we received countless requests from our community asking about when we’d have a perps product. Given that $500 billion of volume flowed through perps DEXs in 2024, this presented us a opportunity that to capture a portion of the pie.
Who are we building for?
We wanted to understand who we were actually building for and what we were going to build so conducted research understand the following:
1
Trading behaviours and mental models.
2
Volume and trading frequency.
3
The current Hyperliquid experience.
4
The perps landscape and feature expectations
Speaking to traders
We spoke to 14 traders with different habits and behaviours.
$10M+
Pros
Trades only on CEXs, needs deep liquidity, the fastest trade execution, and robust functionality.
$100K - $1M
Seasoned
Mostly trades on DEXs, wants an efficient trading experience with trade configurability, and values the transparency of the blockchain.
<
$10K
Newbies
Minimal trading experience, wants a good mobile experience, and is interested in perps, but low appetite for risk.
We ultimately decided to focus on building for ‘seasoned traders’ because they traded a significant amount of volume which provided a greater opportunity to generate revenue.
The perps landscape
We did a deep dive at over 15 perps products. There were several commonalities between all of them but many differed in philosophy and order interface.
Existing fundamentals
We were building on Hyperliquid’s API so we conducted usability testing with 7 seasoned traders on Hyperliquid’s interface to understand UX improvements and new functionality.
1
More order types outside of market/limits.
2
Customizable trades (e.g set more than one TP/SL).
3
A more efficient trading interface.
4
A better mobile experience so they can manage their trades on the go.
5
More transparency on how settings impact their trades and positions.
Building the beta
We were fortunate enough to have a 1.5 month long beta to test the UX and discover edge cases. We conducted internal testing and built the first iteration.
Initial feedback
Our beta group consisted of 20 seasoned traders who provided us with great feedback.
Order form
Too many options on the order form causing users to feel overwhelmed.
Order form
TP/SL didn’t need to be enabled all the time.
Order form
Traders think in token size, not dollar value.
History
Trade history lacked clarity and scanning was difficult.
Mobile
Mobile dashboard made trading slower. Users wanted everything to be one click away.
Mobile
The positions table on mobile had too many buttons and options.
Transparency
More transparency around their balance, PNL etc.
The iteration loop
Throughout the beta and over the next couple months, the product underwent several changes and improvements that would enhance the trading experience and provide utility to traders.
Reflections
We often assume that clean, minimal interfaces automatically mean good UX. While that’s usually true, this project challenged that assumption. It really reinforced the importance of understanding a users’ jobs to be done, mental models, and actual behaviours.
This was also my first time launching a product into beta, which turned out to be the ultimate form of usability testing. Watching real users use the product with real money surfaced insights we never would’ve caught in designs or prototypes. It made reflect on the gaps between designs and real-world usage, and pushed me to reflect on how I can evaluate real world behaviours during the testing phase.
© Chris Tran 2025 All Rights Reserved