The score, by dimension
- the same for all 12
- #11 of 12 · best 26.6
- the same for all 12
- the same for all 12
- the same for all 12
Tick: the best in this ranking · Methodology v2026.11.1
Drift Protocol
Perpetuals DEX on Solana
Historical#11 of all 12 worldwide41
- Rank
- #11 of all 12 worldwide
- Your cost
- Not priced on this basis
- Evidence
- Low0 of 2 scored; no receipt file yet
- Licence
- No MiCA record on file
- Freshness
- Read date not on filechecked · re-read due
Historical verdict. The record carries a sunset date of 1 April 2026. The score is what the methodology produced from the evidence read at the time; it is kept so the ranking history stays auditable, not as a recommendation.
The verdict
Drift Protocol is #11 of 12 published perp DEXs.
Is Drift Protocol right for you?
Look elsewhere if
- Published criteria0/30 here; the category best is 26.6
Not yet tested for your country. Markets it lists: Global. Restricted: United States.
to test where you can use it.
The rank above is the published one, the same for every reader. Find my best perpetual DEX shows where it lands for you.
What will Drift Protocol cost you?
Not priced on this basis
- How do you buy?
- Trading
- Your monthly volume
- $1k
How safe is Drift Protocol?
- Evidence: unknown0 of 2 criteria scored; no receipt file yet. The score is provisional until a quoted source is on file.
- LicenceMiCA (EU): no register record on file here.
Entity: not verified. No hand-confirmed record on file ties Drift Protocol to the company that runs it, so this page cannot say which other products that company operates. Read the legal entity in its terms before you deposit. How we read the evidence
Open the evidenceIf it doesn’t fit, choose
Compare all 4- 9AsterLevel on score41$4.80 a year · read
- 10Synthetix PerpsLevel on score41$6.00 a year · read
- 12Vertex ProtocolLevel on score41
Provider at a glance
- Category
- Perp DEXs
- Entity
- Not verified
- Official website
- drift.trade
Independent rankingchecked How it works
Details
Scored 41 out of 100 under methodology 2026.11.1, from the evidence read on file.
For your setup
Find out if Drift Protocol fits you
The rank above is the published one — the same for every visitor. Answer the category's questions and this section shows where Drift Protocol lands for you, which criteria your answers weight up, and which stated needs the record does or does not meet. The published rank stays beside it.
- A few questions
- No account required
- Ranking-blind: no commercial input
- Personalised in under 60 seconds
Find my best perpetual DEXNothing is inferred from clicks, popularity or commercial value.
Why this rank
Why Drift Protocol ranks #11
2 published criteria · Σ weight 100
This category publishes 2 criteria — security & track record; decentralization & trust-minimization — but no per-criterion strength has been established for Drift Protocol yet. Its position comes from the engine's five dimensions below, measured against the 12 ranked rows. Per-criterion receipts appear once the evidence read lands.
DimensionAgainst the poolValueBestRank
Availability / 20 · constant here14.014.0#1/12
Published criteria / 300.026.6#11/12
Friction / 10 · constant here2.72.7#1/12
Trust record / 8 · constant here3.23.2#1/12
Measured data / 18 · constant here5.55.5#1/12
MarginLevelbehind Synthetix Perps, #10 of all 12 worldwide, on the published score
RobustnessNot scored on criteriait stopped operating on 2026-04-01, so its criterion scores are zeroed in the score and no move is computed
Evidence0 of 2 scoredno receipt file for this category
Strengths
0 from the score dataWhere it leads
It is within a tenth of the scale of the best in this ranking on no dimension that separates the products, so no strength can be stated from the data.
Tradeoffs
1 from the score dataWhere it trails
Not for readers who put first
- Published criteria — 0/30 against a category best of 26.6/30
Record watch-outs
- Closed: the Drift program has been paused since 1 April 2026 and no market can be traded; Velocity, where the Drift app now redirects, is a separate new program with no Drift state carried over
- Fund-loss history: a 2022 market-manipulation loss ($14.5M, returned) and the April-2026 $295M admin-key / multisig compromise; Drift's recovery plan says assets will not be returned directly to depositors
- It was contract-custodied and admin-controlled — the admin-key vector is exactly what the 2026 event exploited
Competitive position
How Drift Protocol places on each criterion
Rank on every objective dimension among the rows scored on it. A criterion in the top third of its pool is listed as a lead, the bottom third as a trail; the middle is neither. Popularity, size and commercial terms are not dimensions.
Against the leader
83 vs 41 · gap 42.0Why Gains Network (gTrade) ranks above Drift Protocol
The compare workspace's arithmetic applied to these two rows. Each dimension's share of the gap is its weight × the difference, on the displayed scale; a floor bound on one of the rows keeps the reproduced gap (69.2) from matching the displayed one exactly, which is stated rather than hidden.
DimensionThisGains Network (gTrade)Gap share
Availability · 23% weight · constant here14.014.0same
Published criteria · 35% weight0.026.6−69.2, worse
Friction · 12% weight · constant here2.72.7same
Trust record · 9% weight · constant here3.23.2same
Measured data · 21% weight · constant here5.55.5same
Net4183−42.0≈
Your scenario
Drift Protocol is not priced for this scenario
Trading fee on what you buy: on one purchase, or for a year of purchases or of trading. Fixed purchase fees and deposit fees are not published as fields yet, so they are excluded, as are network gas and any withdrawal fee. Change an input and every figure recomputes from the published rate; the published rank does not move.
your cost/yr · default scenario — set your own
How do you buy?
How do you buy? · your inputTrading
Your monthly volume · your input$1k
Rate read from the provider’s published pricing ↗ on 3 November 2026.
your cost/yrCost is stated as your cost/yr in USD; it is never a yield, never annualised, and it does not enter the score.
Not priced on this basis
Under the default inputs · USDTypical cost$6.00dYdX, the middle of the 8 priced perp DEXs · 8 of 12 rows priced
Lowest fee, priced rows$4.20 · Gains Network (gTrade)Difference not stated · availability not applied — set your country to filterCompare with Gains Network (gTrade)
2 of 12 rows in this ranking have no verified rate for this scenario and are absent from the typical, not counted as free.
2 of 12 quote a zero fee that leaves costs out, so they are absent from the typical and the lowest fee, not counted as free.
Evidence
No evidence reading date recorded
One row per published criterion: the page each strength was read from, its source type by domain, the reading date and whether the file and the published table agree. Open a row for the quote and the receipt.
0 of 2 cells scored
Score evidenceUnknownno observation on file
No structured observation on file for this category; the strengths are the catalog’s published values.Public receiptsNo receipt filecategory publishes no receipt file
This category publishes no receipt file, because no structured research payload exists for it yet.Evidence confidenceNot yet ratedcoverage and corroboration, never freshness
No structured observation on file for this category; the receipt count is not counted.RobustnessNot scored on criteriano re-run describes this row
Whether the position holds when one criterion score is changed by one point and the ranking is run again. It is always a re-run of the ranking, never an estimate.No structured observation is on file for this provider in this category; the strengths are the catalog’s published values.
12 listed rows in this category still await an evidence read and sit outside the scored pool.
No receipt file. This category publishes no receipt file, because no structured research payload exists for it yet. The ledger below shows the published strengths without their receipts; the scores on this page are unchanged.
CriterionSourceTypeReadFreshnessStatusReceipt
Security & track recordstrength — · weight 60Report an error———
Not scored
No strength is established; the criterion contributes nothing and is not treated as zero.Decentralization & trust-minimizationstrength — · weight 40Report an error———
Not scored
No strength is established; the criterion contributes nothing and is not treated as zero.How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
- Contract failure: the code holding the funds is exploited.Scored by Security & track record · 60%
- Control failure: a key or vote changes the rules, freezes or mints.Scored by Decentralization & trust-minimization · 40%
Not assessed by this ranking: Oracle failure, Insolvency failure, Regulatory failure, Execution failure, Exit failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means.
Facts
facts, not scoresWhat the record publishes
- Pricing
- Model: hybrid orderbook + AMM + JIT (Solana). Live by 2022; closed, program paused since 1 April 2026 (status feed read 2026-11-03: "Drift is being paused until further notice due to irregular activity in the protocol."). Contract-custodied, admin-controlled. Audited (Trail of Bits, Neodyme); fund-loss events (2022 $14.5M market manipulation, returned; April-2026 $295M admin-key compromise; DFX recovery-token claims opened 1 October 2026). Up to 101x (as advertised on drift.trade). No live fee schedule while paused. Live TVL shown for context (DefiLlama, dated), not scored.Drift Protocol — official page at www.drift.trade ↗ · 3 November 2026
- Prices published in
- USDDrift Protocol — official page at www.drift.trade ↗ · 3 November 2026
- Licences held
- Not published
- Compliance level
- unregulated
- Regulatory note
- Not published
- Supported chains
- Solana
- Markets served
- global
- Primary markets
- Not published
- Restricted markets
- United States
- Operating limits
- Not published
- Availability note
- Drift's web-app geoblock list (read 3 November 2026, https://
app .drift .trade / _next /static /chunks /common- 047279725 aa05e28 .js) ends with "{ code: 'US', name: 'United States' }", and the app tells blocked users "You are not allowed to use Drift from a restricted territory." No other modelled country is on the list. Drift's app status feed (read 3 November 2026, https:// mainnet-beta-params .s3 .eu-west-1 .amazonaws .com /params .txt) says: "Drift is being paused until further notice due to irregular activity in the protocol."
No confirmed legal entity is on file for this record. Nothing is inferred from the brand name.
If something goes wrong with Drift Protocol: where to complain, and where to report a scam
Loading the routes for your country.
How this page is reviewed
Reviewed means this product in this category was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.
Accountable for this review: Mathias Siemonsmeier, Founder.
How we review · Review calendar · Corrections log · How we make money
History
What the record carries
Changes to published ranks are recorded in a ledger; every step and its cause is listed on the rank-history page. The entries below begin with the current verified snapshot, then the methodology versions whose changes applied to this category, newest first.
11 methodology entries
- currentCurrent verified snapshot · methodology 2026.11.1Score 41, #11 of 12. 0 of 2 criteria scored. History starts here; earlier values are not interpolated.
- 10 October 2026
2026.10.8When nothing serves your country, the list shown for reference is the published ranking · platform-wide- fixed The reference list shown when nothing serves your country is the published order with the published scores, and a build check now fails any such list out of that order or with a score the ranking does not publish.
- fixed The explorer prints an overall rank only for a row the published ranking holds; a country entrant such as Coinbase Commerce for US merchants shows no overall rank.
- changed Published orders do not move. Country results change only where nothing serves the country: in India bill pay keeps Bitcoin Well first and now shows Strike second, as published; 35 such runs across all categories and countries now match the published list exactly.
- 10 October 2026
2026.10.6A criterion you require re-scores the rows that meet it · platform-wide- changed The explorer sends each criterion you require, at any band, as fit_required with your other answers; region, licence, chain and fact filters stay filters. On /best, a required criterion joins For you as a marked preference does, which needs your country; Overall stays the published ranking, filtered.
- added Every published criterion has a golden case as the explorer sends it (require:<criterion>), so the order a requirement gives is replayed and gated as the published order is, and a change to it needs an entry here.
- 16 September 2026
2026.09.15Dimension scores carry tenths, and eleven more categories are re-read from primary sources · platform-wide- changed Dimension scores resolve to tenths of a point (O-04b), and weightedTotal is rounded to six decimal places before the order is read. 518 published scores move across 107 categories that were not re-read; none of them moves by more than 4 points, and most move by 1.
- fixed 66 published scores change in the eleven re-read categories, against a verbatim source each. The largest moves are Reflexer RAI (−16), Beefy and Unrekt (−11), Aztec (−10) and Golem (+9) — all of them rows whose sources had moved since their last read.
- changed Published order moves in 38 of 119 categories and three #1s change: smart_contract_audits (Zellic → Certora) and travel_rule_compliance (Sumsub Travel Rule → CodeVASP) on the finer resolution, kyc_compliance (Veriff → Sumsub) on the re-read.
- added availabilitySource (O-04g): for a reader who states a country, a row whose availability in that country rests on a region tag its record gives no source for sorts below every sourced row. It is inert in every order published here, which states no country.
Methodology 2026.11.1, the same published run every visitor sees · receipt perp_dex:drift:2026.11.1:6357a9a7908a
Are you Drift Protocol? Reply to this verdict, or send evidence, ask for a correction or claim the listing. Every message gets a public ticket number; none of it changes a rank unless a public page or a signed statement supports it.