Perpetual futures tied to tokenized stocks and commodities generated nearly as much trading volume as Bitcoin perpetuals on two of the largest venues for the products over the past week, according to Talos.
Combined seven-day volume across tracked real-world asset (RWA) perps reached $61.7 billion, equal to 99.2% of Bitcoin perpetual volume on Hyperliquid and Binance, where most trading activity is concentrated, Talos told Cointelegraph in an email summary citing a data snapshot taken on Thursday.
Tokenized equity contracts accounted for 57.8% of the total, followed by commodities at 28.2%.
The value of onchain RWAs has grown to about $36.8 billion, excluding stablecoins, according to RWA.xyz. Crypto exchanges have also expanded their offerings beyond cryptocurrencies, increasingly listing tokenized stocks and commodities alongside digital assets.
Hyperliquid recorded $25.1 billion in RWA perpetual trading volume during the week of July 13 to July 19, exceeding the combined volume of all other perpetual categories on its platform.
Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a July 24 X post that growing RWA trading on Hyperliquid signals crypto markets moving “away from speculating on endogenous digital commodities.”
Growth continues into the new week
Early data for the current week suggests the trend is continuing. RWA perpetual trading volume has already reached $37.2 billion, exceeding Bitcoin perpetual volume by about 9%, according to Talos’ dashboard.
RWA perpetual futures volume as a percentage of Bitcoin perpetual futures volume on Hyperliquid and Binance. Source: Talos
Equity-linked contracts accounted for $22.8 billion of the total, followed by commodities at $9.1 billion and indexes at $4.2 billion. ETFs contributed about $338 million, while foreign exchange, pre-IPO and other RWA contracts made up the remainder.
Earlier in July, Pantera Capital said perpetual futures could become a dominant trading instrument beyond crypto, citing advantages such as 24/7 trading, the absence of contract expiries, simpler position management and continuous price discovery.
Hyperliquid’s growth has drawn attention from traditional finance. Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeffrey Sprecher, whose company owns the New York Stock Exchange, recently urged regulators to create a “level playing field” for 24/7 onchain perpetual futures, arguing that existing market structures should not prevent the development of blockchain-based trading.
Despite the growth, RWA perpetuals remain a relatively small segment of the broader crypto derivatives market. Talos’ data shows aggregate futures trading volume of about $821.4 billion over the past seven days, with tracked RWA perpetuals accounting for roughly 7.5% of the total.
