Solana Perps in 2026: Teams, Jobs and Investor Signals

Perpetual futures, or perps, are the biggest money-maker in crypto trading. For years Solana owned spot trading and token launches but kept losing perps to other chains. In 2026 that has started to change, and it is creating some of the best-paid jobs in the whole ecosystem.

Here is where the volume, the money and the hiring sit right now, and what I would do with it as a job seeker or an investor.

Why perps matter on Solana

A perp is a futures contract with no expiry date. To keep its price close to the real market price, traders on one side pay the other a small "funding" fee. Think of it like a kite on a string: the kite can fly ahead in the wind, but the string keeps pulling it back towards the person holding it.

That simple product needs a lot of hard engineering: matching engines, margin and risk systems, liquidation bots, oracles and market makers. That is why perps teams hire some of the strongest engineers and quants in crypto, and pay for them.

The numbers in 2026

According to the Blockworks Solana Q3 2026 report, Solana perps venues traded $146.2B in Q3. That is down 20% from Q2's record $183.2B, but it is still the second-best quarter ever, and September climbed 15% to $53.0B.

The split tells the story:

• Pacifica took 44% of volume ($64.3B)
• GMTrade took 42% ($62.1B)
• Jupiter took 11% ($16.7B)
• Phoenix more than tripled to $2.7B

On DefiLlama's Solana perps page today, Solana shows about $32.9B in 30-day perps volume and around $265M in open interest. Healthy, but still small next to the biggest perps chains. To me that gap is the opportunity.

The teams worth watching

Pacifica: the quiet leader

Pacifica was co-founded by Constance Wang, the former COO of FTX. It matches orders off-chain and settles on Solana, which gives traders exchange-style speed while they keep custody of their funds. It has no token yet and was self-funded.

The business looks real. DefiLlama shows about $3.6M in revenue over the last 30 days, which runs at roughly $41M a year. Public profiles suggest the team is still small, so anyone joining now gets a lot of ownership. They are also running a builder programme and hackathons for people who want to build trading apps on their APIs, which is a good way in if you are a developer.

Phoenix and Ellipsis Labs: the best-paid jobs

Phoenix is built by Ellipsis Labs in New York. It is fully on-chain, and other apps such as Solflare's perps product route their trades into it. Volume is smaller than the leaders, but it is growing fast: about $1.2B over the last 30 days and nearly $290K in fees.

For job seekers, Ellipsis is the standout. The company says it is profitable, and its jobs board lists 13 open roles. The published pay is strong:

• Senior Backend Engineer: $170K to $250K plus equity
• Quantitative Developer, Risk: $180K to $250K plus equity
• 2027 new grads: $150K to $200K plus equity
• 2027 interns: $10K a month

Most roles are in New York, with a Growth Manager role for Asia. If you are a Rust or C++ engineer who likes markets, this is about as good as Solana pay gets.

Jupiter: distribution wins

Jupiter runs perps against its JLP liquidity pool, with leverage up to 250x on SOL, ETH and wBTC. It is no longer number one on volume, but it has the users, the brand and the pool. Jupiter has advertised perps roles such as a remote full-stack engineer in TypeScript and React. That is a useful reminder that you don't need to be a Rust wizard to work in perps.

GMTrade: the real-world asset venue

GMTrade brought the GMX v2 pool model to Solana. It lists stocks, commodities, forex and indices alongside crypto, and it has led Solana volume for much of the year. One honest caution: a lot of that volume is driven by points, so treat it as a sign of demand, not proof of loyal users.

Bulk: the new challenger

Bulk raised an $8M seed in September 2025, led by 6th Man Ventures and Robot Ventures, with Wintermute in the round and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko as an angel. Its pre-deposit campaign pulled in $25.9M in ten days, and its invite-only mainnet beta went live on 5 September 2026, with about $22M traded on day one.

The launch was not perfect. One trader pushed the price around on day one and triggered liquidations, and Bulk said affected users would be repaid. That is normal for a brand-new exchange, and I like that they owned it publicly.

Drift: the comeback test

Drift lost about $295M in an exploit on 1 April that investigators linked to a North Korean group. It has since rebuilt as Velocity, a perps exchange settled in USDT, with Tether committing up to 127.5M USDT for the relaunch and user recovery. On 1 October Drift opened DFX claims, which give each affected user one token per USDT lost, paid back from a recovery pool.

It is a hard road. But a team that rebuilds after a hit like that, with serious backing, is worth watching closely over the next year.

What this means for job seekers

Perps teams want three kinds of people:

1. Low-latency engineers who know Rust, C++ or Go and care about microseconds.
2. Risk and quant people who can set margin rules, list new assets safely and model liquidations.
3. Product and growth people who can turn complex trading into something clean and simple.

My advice: build something small on a live venue's API, like a funding-rate tracker or a liquidation alert bot, and put it on GitHub. That beats any CV line. Then apply directly and mention what you built.

Security is a growing niche too. After the Drift exploit, every perps team cares more about audits, key management and incident response. If that is your background, check our Security teams.

What this means for investors

Watch revenue, not just volume. Volume can be bought with points; fees paid by real traders can't. Pacifica and Phoenix both show real fee income, which is a good sign. For tokens, watch value flowing back to holders: for example, Jito Labs has said 80% of fees from its new JTX trading terminal go to Jito token buybacks, with perps on its roadmap.

Also watch open interest. Rising open interest means traders are trusting a venue with real positions, not just churning for points.

The big picture is positive. Solana already has the users, the speed and the stablecoins. If it wins even a fair share of the global perps market, the teams above will need a lot more people.

What to do next

Browse the Trading & MEV and DeFi categories, or explore every team on Solana Teams. Pick two or three teams, follow their builders on X, and apply with something you have built.

Building a perps app, a trading tool or anything else on Solana? List your team on Solana Teams so job seekers and investors can find you.