Exclusive: Perpl raises $9.25M from Dragonfly to build on Monad

Perpl, a perps DEX, plans to launch testnet by the end of this year

article-image

Mama pig/Shutterstock and Adobe modified by Blockworks

share

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


A new perps DEX is entering the chat. 

The team exclusively told me that Perpl, a decentralized perpetual futures exchange, raised $9.25 million from Dragonfly to build on Monad. 

Other participants in the round include Ergonia, Brevan Howard, Breed, L1D and CMS. 

I had a chance to speak with co-founder PB, who told me that he and his cofounder — both Americans — left the US to build Perpl in London. They’ve since hired a London-based team. Surprise, surprise, the decision came due to the lack of regulatory clarity in the US. 

PB isn’t writing off the US entirely, though, noting that if the laws change, Perpl would consider opening up to the market — it’s just not currently in the cards. 

Perpetual futures, or perps, are becoming more of a popular product, especially in crypto. Just last week, Coinbase teased that 24/7 perps were “coming soon” after announcing 24/7 futures trading. 

“I think the thing with perps, specifically, is how simple it is. With options, there’s just a lot of complexity. There are expirations, there’s just a lot more math for users to be aware of. But perps, it’s very simple, never expires,” PB explained. 

“You just have to keep track of liquidations. And then that also helps with getting all the liquidity in one place. With options, since you have expirations, you have liquidity each month, but with perps, all liquidity for the assets is in the same place. More liquidity, better trading experience.”

What PB noticed is that crypto traders like the ease of access that perps offer. There’s also the added benefit that a project like Perpl can move faster on a token listing than, say, a Coinbase. 

“With perps, you just need an oracle price and USDC, and you can start immediately taking a position. If you were to rewind back to maybe a couple of years ago, you needed a Binance or one of these central exchanges to actually list perps, but with DEXs, they’re able to list these tokens faster,” he explained. 

Perps DEXs are “broken in a very interesting way,” PB told me. Basically, there are infrastructure and engineering issues and then the DEXs make some trade-offs to account for them, but Perpl claims to be different. 

“What Hyperliquid has done with a cloud-based perp DEX has shown that the market appetite is there for something that has a deep liquidity. What we’re really excited for is to see how the composability angle plays out with that,” he added. 

Perpl plans to utilize the EVM architecture from Monad to build its onchain central limit order book. But the downside is that, since it’s on Monad, it won’t be able to launch mainnet until Monad itself goes live. It does, however, plan to launch testnet by the end of the year. 

“We’ve raised enough money to help us sustain ourselves if testnet or mainnet takes longer, but we want to get it onto testnet by the end of this year, just because we want people to try it,” he said. “There are going to be bugs that they’re going to be able to find. No matter how much we test internally, [nothing beats] user testing, so we want them to be able to get their hands on it.”

But PB and the team aren’t too worried if Monad’s mainnet takes longer than anticipated; they’ll just be building up the features on Perpl in the meantime.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

🚀 Build What’s Next — Permissionless IV Hackathon Join us June 22–23 in Brooklyn for the Permissionless IV Hackathon — a 36-hour sprint hosted by Cracked Labs and Blockworks where top builders turn ideas into real products. Come to launch, not just […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (10).png

Research

Kamino has evolved into a full-stack asset scaling suite with V2: unlocking new markets, improving capital efficiency, and catering to various risk profiles. We believe it is best positioned to become the credit backbone of Solana as the ecosystem matures. Simply put, KMNO remains our highest-conviction bet in the Solana ecosystem. This report lays out our thesis.

article-image

This isn’t the worst hack to ever hit Mt. Gox, but it could be the most entertaining

article-image

Crossover’s CEO discusses institutional interest and how over-the-counter (OTC) trading has picked up in crypto

article-image

Sponsored

This collaboration signifies a major leap forward in expanding the reach and utility of Web3 gaming within the vibrant Asian market

article-image

Asymmetric information is threatening crypto the same way it once threatened equities. Disclosure might be the fix.

article-image

Rate cuts drift into Q4 limbo as markets pretend everything’s fine

article-image

The FOMC held interest rates steady for the fourth-straight time on Wednesday