The memecoin traders moved to perps

On November 3, 2026, Adam Tehc (@Adam_Tehc), who maintains the onchain terminal tracker Tehc Screener, posted two weekly charts from the consumer trading app fomo and asked a five-word question: “are we doing perps now?”

The top chart showed weekly spot token trading on fomo. After peaking near $2.4 billion a week in mid-August 2026, spot volume for the week of October 26 to November 1 had fallen to $295.7 million across seven chains: $235.3 million on Solana, $38.2 million on Robinhood, $15.0 million on BNB Chain, $5.0 million on Base, $2.0 million on Ethereum, $135,000 on Arc, and $17,000 on Monad.

FIG. 01 · SPOT BREAKDOWN

Solana still accounted for $235.3M of fomo's $295.7M spot week, while six other chains split $60.4M.

fomo weekly spot token volume by chain, Oct 26 to Nov 1, 2026 (USD) · Total $295.7M

Solana spot token swaps$235.3M

• Solana token swaps on fomo$235.3MTehc Screener (@Adam_Tehc)

Six other chains combined$60.4M

• Robinhood$38.2MTehc Screener (@Adam_Tehc)
• BNB Chain$15.0MTehc Screener (@Adam_Tehc)
• Base$5.0MTehc Screener (@Adam_Tehc)
• Ethereum$2.0MTehc Screener (@Adam_Tehc)
• Arc$135KTehc Screener (@Adam_Tehc)
• Monad$17KTehc Screener (@Adam_Tehc)

• Over the same Oct 26 to Nov 1 week, fomo weekly perps notional volume hit a record $1.03B (3.48x total spot). Tehc Screener (@Adam_Tehc)

Sources: Tehc Screener (@Adam_Tehc). Chain figures read from the Tehc Screener weekly volume chart for fomo (Oct 26 to Nov 1, 2026). The six non-Solana chains sum to $60.352M; the chart headline total is rounded to $295.7M.

The bottom chart showed fomo’s weekly perpetual futures volume over the same October 26 to November 1 window. Notional perp volume hit a weekly record of $1.03 billion, or 3.48 times the app’s spot token volume. The same retail interface that spent the summer routing spot memecoin swaps is now doing more than a billion dollars a week in leveraged contracts.

FIG. 02 · VOLUME SHIFT

On fomo, weekly perps notional volume hit a record $1.03B while spot token trading fell to $295.7M.

Onchain terminal and launchpad metrics tracked by Tehc Screener, late October to early November 2026

Venue or gauge	Prior peak	Oct 26 to Nov 4	Change / status
fomo weekly perps (notional)	~$870M prior Oct highTehc Screener (fomo)	$1.03B (Oct 26 to Nov 1)Tehc Screener (fomo)	Record week, 3.48x spotTehc Screener (fomo)
fomo weekly spot tokens	~$2.4B (mid-Aug 2026)Tehc Screener (fomo)	$295.7M across 7 chainsTehc Screener (fomo)	Solana $235.3M, Robinhood $38.2MTehc Screener (fomo)
10 onchain trading terminals	Aug 2026 weekly highTehc Screener (terminals)	Day 58 of drawdown (Nov 4)Tehc Screener (terminals)	-89% (5th ~90% slump since 2023)Tehc Screener (terminals)
Solana launchpad share	Sep 11: Pump 49.3%, Stonk 48.3%Tehc Screener (launchpads)	Nov 3: Pump.fun ~90% shareTehc Screener (launchpads)	Challengers faded with volumeTehc Screener (launchpads)

Sources: Tehc Screener (fomo), Tehc Screener (terminals), Tehc Screener (launchpads). Perps figures measure leveraged notional volume; spot figures measure unlevered token swaps on the fomo app. Terminal drawdown covers 10 venues tracked by Tehc Screener (Axiom, Trojan, fomo, Maestro, Basedbot, Photon, GMGN, Bullx, Terminal and the Pump.fun app).

Spot and perp numbers do not measure the same dollar of capital. A $295.7 million spot week measures unlevered token swaps; a $1.03 billion perp week measures notional exposure where $50 million of margin turned over at 20x leverage prints $1 billion on the tape. Even with that caveat, the direction of the two curves is the story. On fomo, spot volume is down roughly seven-eighths from its August high, while perp notional volume just set an all-time weekly high after five straight weeks between roughly $720 million and $870 million.

The fifth terminal slump

Zooming out from fomo to the broader onchain terminal market shows how deep the spot contraction runs. Across the ten trading terminals tracked by Tehc Screener (Axiom, Trojan, fomo, Maestro, Basedbot, Photon, GMGN, Bullx, Terminal, and the Pump.fun app), combined weekly volume fell 89% from its August 2026 peak to the first week of November. On November 2, Tehc’s composite Trench Index dropped to 26, labeled “Cold,” after losing another 10 points in two weeks.

“We're approaching the 5th -90% drawdown for onchain trading terminals, ever. The average time from peak to bottom is ~45 days and the longest drawdown before a turn was 61 days (March 2025). We're currently at day 58.”

As Tehc noted on November 4, this is the fifth time since October 2023 that onchain trading terminals have gone through a drawdown of roughly 90%. The four earlier slumps fell 95% in early 2024, 91% in mid-2024, 93% in early 2025, and 93% in late 2025. Historically, those drawdowns took an average of about 45 days from peak to bottom, and the longest one before a turn lasted 61 days in March 2025. As of November 4, the current slide sat at day 58.

What changed inside the fifth drawdown is what happened to the venues competing for new token launches. On September 11, 2026, Solana launchpads cleared $841.8 million in a single day, and challenger launchpad Stonk took 48.3% of that volume against Pump.fun’s 49.3% and LetsBonk’s 2.4%. Less than eight weeks later, on November 3, Pump.fun was back near 90% of Solana launchpad volume, while Stonk and LetsBonk had faded to a sliver of a much smaller pie. When retail flow dried up, incentives and fee rebates stopped keeping traders on secondary launchpads.

Why perps held the room

A memecoin launchpad requires a fresh supply of buyers willing to hold spot inventory through a bonding curve and into an automated market maker pool. When the median new token stops graduating or dumps minutes after migration, spot traders face an asymmetric game: you cannot easily short a five-minute-old bonding-curve token, and thin liquidity punishes anyone trying to exit size.

Perpetual futures inside the same mobile app invert that trade:

1. Two-way expression on liquid tickers. Instead of hunting through thousands of newly minted tickers for the one coin that survives the day, a trader on fomo can go long or short BTC, SOL, or major listed tokens with deep books and tight spreads.
2. Same dopamine, less rug risk. A 10x or 20x perp position gives retail traders the intraday volatility they chased in micro-cap memecoins without smart-contract honeypots, bundled sniper wallets, or creator liquidity pulls.
3. Fee survival for the apps. Terminal operators that relied purely on 1% swap fees from spot memecoin churn watched four-fifths of their volume vanish in two months. Adding a perp tab lets the app keep the user session and earn taker fees even when the token trenches freeze.

Whether day 58 marks the bottom of the fifth terminal drawdown or the start of a longer structural shift depends on what happens when risk appetite returns. If spot terminal volume snaps back the way it did after the 61-day slump in March 2025, October’s perp spike will look like a temporary shelter during a cold month. Until then, the retail speculator has not left the casino. He just walked from the penny slots over to the margin desk.

Not financial advice.