On-chain switching from CEX, stocks surpassing commodities, is the next stop mainstream brokerages?
Written by: Ryan Holloway, a16z
Translated by: Saoirse, Foresight News
The trading of perpetual futures linked to stocks, gold, and other traditional assets is rapidly growing, and an increasing number of such trades are moving on-chain.
These contracts are often referred to as Real World Asset Perpetual Contracts (RWA Perps), allowing traders to gain price exposure to traditional assets without actually purchasing the underlying assets. Unlike regular futures, they have no fixed expiration date, and some platforms support 24/7 uninterrupted trading, covering weekends when commodity markets and stock exchanges are closed.
Market demand is surging. Monitoring platforms indicate that the monthly trading volume of RWA perpetual contracts reached $117.3 billion in August, a 44-fold increase year-over-year; the open interest, which measures traders' market exposure, reached $48 billion. The vast majority of trading occurs on on-chain platforms, with on-chain trading volume currently accounting for 86% of the total trading volume of RWA perpetual contracts.
Note: A few centralized platforms regulated by the U.S. can offer products similar to perpetual futures to U.S. users, but currently, only one platform has been approved to trade a single perpetual contract variety. All other centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges restrict U.S. users' participation in genuine perpetual futures contract trading.
Illustrating the significant expansion of RWA perpetual contract trading between 2025.7 and 2026.8, with the market focus shifting from CEX to on-chain platforms, peaking in July, then slightly retreating in August.
After a brief decline in trading volume in April, it set a new high again in May, climbing to a peak of $145.1 billion in July, and then falling back to $117.3 billion in August. Even with this pullback, the trading volume in August is still 44 times that of a year ago.
Initially, RWA perpetual contract trading was mainly concentrated on centralized exchanges. By November 2025, centralized exchanges accounted for over two-thirds of the monthly trading volume. By December 2025, on-chain and centralized market trading volumes were roughly equal; for most of 2026, on-chain platforms continued to capture market share. As of August, on-chain platforms processed about $101 billion in RWA perpetual contract trading volume, accounting for 86%, while centralized exchanges handled only about $16 billion.
This chart presents the structural reversal of RWA perpetual contract trading shares between 2025.7 and 2026.8, with trading dominance shifting from centralized exchanges to on-chain platforms, reaching 86% on-chain trading share in August.
This market change coincides roughly with several key infrastructure upgrades, particularly the HIP-3 upgrade launched by Hyperliquid in October 2025. This upgrade allows developers to deploy their own perpetual futures markets relying on the shared trading infrastructure HyperCore.
The RWA market is one of the first applications based on this framework to launch, rapidly gaining market traction. The trading volume of RWA perpetual contracts on several on-chain platforms quadrupled in October, reaching approximately $4 billion. By December, on-chain platforms accounted for half of the RWA perpetual contract trading within the monitored scope. After peaking in March, centralized exchange trading volumes continued to decline into July, while on-chain trading volumes kept rising.
The structure of trading varieties also changed. A year ago, commodities accounted for 84% of RWA perpetual contract trading volume and remained the largest category until June; since then, the market focus has shifted toward stocks. As of August this year, stocks accounted for 48% of the trading volume, commodities 28%, and index products 18%.
Between 2025.7 and 2026.8, the trading focus of RWA perpetual contracts shifted from commodities to stocks; by August, stocks accounted for 48% of trading volume, becoming the largest trading category.
The open interest of RWA perpetual contracts (i.e., the notional value of circulating contracts) grew from $161 million in July 2025 to $4.8 billion in August 2026, an increase of nearly 30 times. Even with a reduction in trading volume, the open interest continued to rise in April, maintaining nearly historical high levels by August.
Between 2025.7 and 2026.8, the open interest of RWA perpetual contracts increased from $161 million to $4.8 billion, growing nearly 30 times, with the market’s existing exposure continuing to expand.
The transition of assets toward stocks was first reflected in the open interest data, then eventually mirrored in the trading volume. In June, the open interest for stock-related contracts ($1.6 billion) surpassed that of commodities ($1.2 billion); a month later, stock trading volume also surpassed that of commodities. In July, the gap in open interest between the two widened, while in August it narrowed, with stock open interest at $2.2 billion and commodities at $1.6 billion.
Between 2025.7 and 2026.8, the focus of RWA perpetual contract positions shifted from commodities to stocks, with stock open interest surpassing commodities by June 2026; in August, stock positions reached $2.2 billion, ranking first.
Compared to traditional derivatives markets, the trading volume scale of RWA perpetual contracts is still relatively small; on mature platforms, the monthly trading volumes of futures and options can reach several trillion dollars.
However, the growth of monthly trading volume for RWA perpetual contracts proves that obtaining exposure to traditional assets on-chain is no longer just an idea. The next core question is: Can RWA perpetual contracts become a regular business for traditional brokerages and exchanges?
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