Delphi Digital analyst warns of challenges for Papertrade after 93% staking revenue drop

Papertrade had a launch most protocols would envy. Within days it briefly ranked second globally for daily revenue and racked up more than $1.3 trillion in cumulative notional volume. Then the farmers started packing up. Staking revenue paid to PAPER holders dropped 93% in a single day, and a Delphi Digital analyst is now openly questioning whether the exchange can keep the lights on through organic activity alone. Jason Pagoulatos, an analyst at Delphi Digital, summed up the mood on X. “Many papertrade farmers are leaving, making future farming and revenue generation very difficult.” From second place to outside the top 20 Papertrade is an onchain perpetuals decentralized exchange built on the HyperEVM. It opened for trading on October 10, 2026. The pitch was straightforward: synthetic BTC and ETH perpetual contracts with high leverage. The opening weekend was loud. The cumulative notional volume figure above $1.3 trillion put Papertrade briefly near the very top of revenue leaderboards. The comedown was just as fast. Open interest fell from approximately $11 billion to $693 million within 24 hours of launch, a 93.7% decline. Total value locked also slid early. By October 11, TVL ...