Author | Asher (@Asher_0210)
A funding announcement has made Perp DEX Variational a hot topic in the airdrop community.
Last night, Variational announced the completion of a $50 million Series A round led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto and Coinbase Ventures. In response to the news, Variational’s pre-market price surged over 36% briefly, reaching $6.90 (implying a fully diluted valuation of $690 million); it has since pulled back and is currently trading at $6.10 (implying a fully diluted valuation of $610 million).
Variational pre-market price movement
Additionally, the probability of the event "Variational's FDV exceeding $500 million one day after launch" on the prediction platform predict.fun has risen to 57%; the probability of the event "Variational's FDV exceeding $1 billion one day after launch" has risen to 27%.
Predict.fun's "Variational FDV one day after launch" prediction event
Next, Odaily Planet Daily will walk you through Variational, the rules for earning points through trading, and when the TGE will take place.
Variational: A zero-fee perpetual DEX deployed on Arbitrum
Variational is a Perp DEX platform deployed on Arbitrum, headquartered in the Cayman Islands, with its core product being Omni. In simple terms, users can trade major crypto assets such as BTC, ETH, and SOL on Variational, as well as perpetual contracts on a wider range of assets including long-tail cryptocurrencies, stocks, commodities, and volatility indices.
Compared to most Perp DEXs, Variational's most straightforward feature is zero trading fees. When users trade on Omni, the platform does not charge standard trading fees; the main costs come from the spread, slippage, funding rates, and deposit/withdrawal fees.
In addition, Variational’s underlying design differs from traditional Perp DEXs. Rather than relying solely on internal order matching or a single liquidity pool to absorb trades, it connects to multiple liquidity sources through a “brokerage-like” model, including traditional financial market makers, crypto-native liquidity providers, and major exchanges, to address the “liquidity cold start” problem on-chain.
According to DefiLlama data, Variational has achieved over $16 billion in trading volume over the past month, with open interest exceeding $800 million, ranking fourth among Perp DEXs. Notably, among the top five Perp DEXs by open interest, Variational is the only one that has not yet issued a token.
Prep DEX Open Interest Ranking
Earn points through trading, Variational Rules Explained
For regular users, the most straightforward way to participate in Variational right now is still trading to earn points.
Variational officially launched the Omni Points program on December 17, 2025, and retroactively awarded 3 million points to historical trading users as of December 11, 2025. Going forward, points will be distributed every Friday at 00:00 UTC, based on platform activity up to the previous Thursday at 00:00 UTC.
In addition, according to the document, the project commits approximately 50% of the token supply to the community (through various mechanisms such as points and revenue sharing, rather than a single airdrop), and plans to use at least 30% of protocol revenue for VAR token buybacks and burns.
The core of the Variational points system is not complex: the more active your trading, the greater your chance to earn more points. However, Variational does not simply distribute points based on trading volume alone—it incorporates a design that prioritizes trading quality, including:
- Points are directly tied to user trading activity: the platform’s rewards page states that the points program is designed to reward protocol users, who can earn points through platform activities. The official team reserves the right to adjust points and address non-organic behavior, meaning obvious spam, arbitrage-driven point farming, or similar activities may result in point reductions or removal.
- Early users receive an additional bonus: accounts that have traded before the points program launch will receive a 10% points bonus on future points earned;
- Reward Tiers have been introduced: your rank is determined by your total trading volume over the past 30 days, calculated as your personal trading volume plus 0.2 times the trading volume of your referrals. Each tier offers a different points multiplier: Iron at 0%, Bronze at 0.5%, Silver at 1%, Gold at 2%, Platinum at 3%, Diamond at 4%, and Infinity at 5%. To qualify for Bronze, your Total Volume over the past 30 days must reach $1 million; for Silver, $5 million; for Gold, $25 million; for Platinum, $100 million; for Diamond, $750 million; and for Infinity, $2.5 billion.
- Refer others to earn points and USDC rewards: Referrers receive 5% of the spread paid by referred users in USDC, and for every 10 points earned by a referred user, the referrer earns 1 point.
From a rules perspective, Variational's points design favors organic trading over pure volume manipulation. For users seeking rewards, the focus should not just be on completing a single trade, but on evaluating whether their trading frequency, capital efficiency, position risk, and points cost are aligned.
When will Variational conduct its TGE?
Currently, Variational has not announced a specific TGE date for VAR. However, according to information disclosed in the official documentation, token distribution will continue at the latest until the end of Q3 2026. Therefore, the community generally expects the TGE to occur between Q3 and Q4 this year.
Data source: Variational official documentation
Additionally, prediction market pricing is more skewed toward Q4. Polymarket data shows that the probability of the event “Variational will launch its token before September 30 this year” is only 26%, while the probability of the event “Variational will launch its token before December 31 this year” is 78%.
Polymarket's prediction event for "When will Variational have its TGE?"