Guides & Research

BULK has revealed the Challenger Series, a seasonal ranked league where trading-earned Ranked Aura determines your ladder position. Ranks move weekly, Challenger is the playoff tier, and pre-deposit or BulkSOL AURA does not count toward league rank.

Onchain perp DEX volume peaked at $1.36T in October 2025, then fell for five straight months to a 2026 low in April. It has not recovered — the last 30 days totaled roughly $423B, with Hyperliquid alone now taking ~58% share. Here is who is gaining, who is down 74% in three months, who is rebuilding after a $285M hack, and where BULK Exchange — live on mainnet since September 5 — fits into a shrinking, consolidating market.

Aster is the multichain leverage leader — up to 1001x, tokenized stocks, its own L1. BULK Exchange is a Solana-native CLOB with correlation-adjusted portfolio margin. This comparison covers fees, leverage, architecture, and which trader profile each one actually serves.

Velocity DEX is Drift Protocol under a new name, relaunching after the $285M April 2026 hack with a $127.5M Tether credit line. Its post-fork code is still awaiting a published audit report. BULK Exchange has been live on mainnet since September 5, 2026, with a completed Zellic audit. Here is the honest comparison.

BULK Exchange mainnet is live and Zellic-audited, but "safe" means different things for a perp DEX than for a bank. Here is every risk category — protocol, custody, market, and phishing — ranked by how much it actually matters.