# What venues ask for before you trade

Updated 24 September 2026, Terms read 18 September 2026, The Wallet First review desk

## What every venue asks for

The row that matters most on this site, because the first column is the admission test. Sign-in is what
the venue's own onboarding page describes; the documents column quotes what its terms say about identity
checks, which is not always the same thing as the marketing page.

| Entry | What opens the door | Papers asked for | Check the terms reserve |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aevo | Wallet connect | Terms: transactions only through your own wallet service | Nothing published |
| ApeX Omni | Wallet, or email with a Privy wallet | Docs state no KYC and no forms | States none |
| Aster | Wallet signature or email | Terms allow limited identity verification procedures | Right reserved |
| Drift | Solana wallet | Self-custodial; no account to register | States none |
| dYdX | Wallet signature, or Google, Apple or email | None to trade | Nothing published |
| edgeX | Wallet or MPC login | None in the user terms we read | Nothing published |
| EVEDEX | Wallet signature | None to trade; on-chain AML screening on deposits | Mechanism named |
| Extended | Wallet signature, EVM or Starknet | Terms reserve the right to deny access after a KYT risk assessment | Right reserved |
| GMX | Wallet connect or passkey wallet | Docs state permissionless access, no KYC | States none |
| gTrade | Email or social instant wallet, or a wallet | Docs state no signup and no deposit to start | States none |
| Hyperliquid | Wallet signature or email code | None in the onboarding documentation | Nothing published |
| Jupiter Perps | Solana wallet | Terms reserve the right to run KYC and AML checks | Right reserved |
| Lighter | Wallet signature | None in the documentation we read | Nothing published |
| Orderly (WOOFi Pro) | Wallet through a front-end, EIP-712 signature | None stated; US addresses and sanctioned regions blocked | Nothing published |
| Ostium | Email with a smart account, or a wallet | Site states no account approvals | States none |
| Paradex | Wallet signature; account derived from the address | None in the account documentation | Nothing published |

Mechanism named: the venue writes down how deposits are checked. Right reserved: the terms allow a check without describing one. States none: the documentation says access needs no approval. Nothing published: neither the terms nor the docs say either way.

Every door and every clause above was read on 18 September 2026 in the venue's own pages. The test is
applied to those pages rather than to the cell that summarises them, and one row shows why that matters:
Paradex's sign-in cell records the signature route its account is derived from, while the wallet overview
the cell was taken from also describes an embedded wallet opened from an email or a social account. That
second route is what puts Paradex on the right-hand side of the figure above. Wherever a venue's own
onboarding pages document a way in of that kind — an email, a social account, or a wallet the venue opens
for the trader — the venue is outside the register, however cheap it is and however deep its book. A
marketing page and a terms-of-use page rarely say the same thing in the same words, and when they disagree
here the clause is the one quoted. Who a venue will deal with also depends on where you are, so find the
terms that cover your own country before any money moves.

Sorted by sign-in, the 16 split evenly:

- On the register — a wallet signature is the only sign-in their own pages document (8): Aevo, Drift, EVEDEX, Extended, GMX, Jupiter Perps, Lighter, Orderly (WOOFi Pro)- Off the register — an email or a social login opens an account as well (8): ApeX Omni, Aster, dYdX, edgeX, gTrade, Hyperliquid, Ostium, Paradex
## Desk figures

- Venues read: 16 — order-book, hybrid and pool-priced, 10 of them with a book to mark
- On the register: eight of 16 — a wallet signature is the only sign-in their own onboarding pages document
- Ranked on these pages: four of them — the register entries that run an order book we could open and sample
- Reserving the right to ask: 3 of 16 — terms that allow identity checks or a risk assessment before access
- BTC orders within 10 bps: $102.8 million — across 10 order-book venues, median of 57 snapshots a book

## The scored venues, in order

Four rows, because the board on this page is the register and the register is four entries long. Ten
venues on this desk have an order book we could sample and a published fee schedule, and all ten carry a
mark against the same five headings; the six missing here document a second door, so their marks are
printed on [the method page](/how-we-score#every-mark-on-the-site-in-one-table) instead, where the
boundary can be read against numbers rather than taken on trust. The door figure at the top of this page
is where each of the sixteen is placed on one side of that line or the other.

| Place | Venue | Score of 5 | Points by criterion, each 0-10 | Maker / taker | Perp markets | Open interest | 24h volume | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lighter | 4.5 | access 8.0 · custody 10.0 · cost 10.0 · coverage 9.2 · liquidity 6.4 | 0% / 0% | 214 | $585.4 million | $2.0 billion | Hybrid, ZK-proven |
| 2 | Extended | 3.9 | access 8.0 · custody 7.0 · cost 8.5 · coverage 9.6 · liquidity 5.7 | 0% / 0.025% | 325 | $84.0 million | $612.8 million | Hybrid |
| 3 | EVEDEX | 3.4 | access 8.0 · custody 5.0 · cost 6.5 · coverage 7.8 · liquidity 6.5 | 0.015% / 0.045% | 52 | $704.9 million | $700.5 million | Hybrid |
| 4 | Aevo | 3.3 | access 8.0 · custody 7.0 · cost 3.0 · coverage 8.5 · liquidity 5.2 | 0.050% / 0.080% | 102 | $12.8 million | $7.7 million | Hybrid |

Weights: Onboarding and access 30 · Custody and settlement 25 · Trading cost 20 · Market coverage 15 · Liquidity 10. Fixed 21 September 2026, before a venue was scored. Rubric and arithmetic: https://cafrodytes.com/how-we-score

Open interest and 24-hour volume is the venue's own return, as CoinMarketCap listed it on 22 September 2026; market counts come from each venue's own documentation.

## Where the resting orders sit

| Venue | Median depth within 10 bps | Median spread |
|---|---|---|
| EVEDEX | $17.9 million | 4.12 bps |
| Lighter | $16.7 million | 0.01 bps |
| Extended | $7.3 million | 0.12 bps |
| Aevo | $3.8 million | 1.91 bps |

Each row stands on 56 readings of that venue's own book, taken on 19 September 2026, ten minutes between readings, beginning just after midnight UTC. A venue priced against an oracle keeps no resting book to read, so none of them is filed in this table.

## What this site reads before it scores

No venue on this page asks a trader for a passport before the first perpetual position. They differ in
what they ask for instead — a wallet signature, an email, a social login — and that difference is the whole
subject of this desk. We read the onboarding pages and the terms of use of 16 venues, sorted them by the
sign-in each one documents, then measured what the tables leave out: how much depth sits in each order
book. Eight venues came out of that sorting with a wallet signature and nothing else behind the door, and
four of those eight run an order book deep enough to rank.

## The test a venue has to pass to be entered here

A trader reaches a position on a perpetual venue by proving control of an address, or by opening an
account with the venue and letting it hold something on their behalf. This desk files only the first
kind. The wording of the test: **the sign-in a venue's own onboarding pages document must be a
signature from a wallet the trader already holds, with no email account, no social login and no wallet
the venue opens for them behind it.**

EVEDEX, Extended, Lighter and Aevo pass it among the venues with an order book, and Drift's Velocity
fork, GMX, Jupiter Perps and Orderly pass it among the pool-priced ones. ApeX Omni, Aster, dYdX, edgeX,
gTrade, Hyperliquid, Ostium and Paradex all document a second way in that an email address or a social
account opens, usually with a wallet created for the trader at the other end, so none of them is
entered. Paradex is the closest call and the one worth checking first: the signature route its account
is derived from is the one the sign-in column above records, and the same wallet overview describes an
embedded wallet opened from an email or a social account. Two of the eight still appear on this site,
in head-to-head pages, because a comparison is not the register and the pages say so.

The test is not a judgement about which venue is better run. It is a boundary, published so that the
list has one, and every cell it rests on is printed in the table above.

## What "no KYC" actually means

It means no identity documents are collected to open a position. It does not mean nothing is checked.
Deposits arrive on-chain, and on-chain addresses carry history: several venues describe automated
screening of incoming funds, and most terms of use exclude sanctioned persons and a list of countries
outright. Three venues in this list go further and reserve the right to request verification or to run a
risk assessment before granting access. The table above records which venues reserve that right, in the
words their own terms use.

## Every page on this desk

Rankings:

- [No-KYC crypto exchange list](https://cafrodytes.com/no-kyc-crypto-exchange) — the register in full, ordered by what each entry asks for
- [Best non-KYC venue for perpetual futures](https://cafrodytes.com/best-non-kyc-crypto-exchange) — scored on onboarding, custody, cost, markets and depth
- [Wallet-only trading platforms](https://cafrodytes.com/wallet-only-trading-platforms) — the same test applied to pool-priced venues as well
- [Gold, oil and stock perpetuals without an account](https://cafrodytes.com/no-kyc-multi-asset-perpetuals) — four venues placed by how many asset classes each one's market list documents

Lists and comparisons:

- [Perp DEX list by onboarding](https://cafrodytes.com/perp-dex-list-by-onboarding) — the register ordered by what each entry documents about its checks
- [Binance alternatives without documents](https://cafrodytes.com/binance-alternatives-without-documents) — for traders leaving a verified exchange account
- [No-KYC venues compared](https://cafrodytes.com/no-kyc-perp-venues-by-cost) — fees, custody and what the terms reserve
- [EVEDEX vs Aster](https://cafrodytes.com/evedex-vs-aster) — a register entry against a venue the test keeps out
- [Lighter vs edgeX](https://cafrodytes.com/lighter-vs-edgex) — onboarding and custody side by side, across the register line

Method and guides:

- [What is AML screening](https://cafrodytes.com/what-is-aml-screening) — what a no-KYC venue still checks, and when
- [How we rate](https://cafrodytes.com/how-we-score) — the admission test, then five criteria and their weights
- [About this desk](https://cafrodytes.com/about) — who writes here and where the numbers come from

The Wallet First review desk, 24 September 2026. Corrections: desk@cafrodytes.com

Publication here is paid for.