RWA trading has offset some of the slowdown on perpetual futures markets, which often shift between crypto, equities, and commodities. As Cryptopolitan reported, perpetual futures trading has turned into one of the major use cases for on-chain activity. Recently, Ripple also announced its own brand of on-chain RWA perpetual futures swaps.
RWA perpetual futures on DEXs are the fastest and most direct way for crypto natives and international traders to access non-crypto markets. The growth of perpetual futures also coincides with rapidly expanding tokenization, which adds spot markets for selected assets. RWA perpetual futures add extra opportunities for leveraged positions.
RWA perpetual futures are still a growth sector
RWA perpetual futures trading is still evolving, and users are shifting between available markets. The sector remains unregulated for now, with minimal exclusion lists and still almost complete anonymity.
TradeXYZ retains over $1.9B in open interest, a significant share of the $7.8B total on Hyperliquid. Its current competitor, Variational, reports $2B in total open interest, spread across 550 markets. TradeXYZ has lost some of its open interest since August, when it peaked at $2.15B. Other trackers place the TradeXYZ open interest at around $3.6B.
In total, perpetual futures open interest for RWA is estimated at $3.8B based on Dune Analytics methods. Around $1.9B in value is used in decentralized protocols as collateral. RWA perpetual futures on DEXs still lag behind the centralized markets, which carry over $215B in open interest. Still, RWA perpetual futures are only a small part of that market, which is mostly focused on crypto contracts.
As of 2026, on-chain infrastructure is mostly used by crypto natives. RWA perpetual futures and tokenization are yet to be adopted as official rails for traditional finance, though this is one of the optimistic cases for the industry.
RWA perpetual futures also boost fee production, becoming one of the predictably busy markets with 101.5K active daily addresses for Hyperliquid, of which around 10K are trading RWA contracts. RWA contract trading is still one of the developing use cases, with more growth expected in the coming months.
RWA perpetual futures bring real liquidity
The growth of RWA perpetual futures on DEXs and centralized markets is the key to RWA adoption.
In terms of tokenization, Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain are still leaders in paper value. Solana expanded its tokenized value from $1B in 2025 to $4.37B in October, with liquidity coming from XStocks trading on selected markets.
The Hyperliquid ecosystem is still the leader for on-chain trading and bringing real liquidity from whales and crypto natives.
HIP-3, the RWA perpetual futures hub on Hyperliquid, also tracks the main trends in the RWA space. As of October 16, the platform has focused again on indexes and selected equities, with another uptick in activity for gold and oil.
