All-time highs: This week, trading activity in so-called real-world asset (RWA) perpetual futures surged to record levels, led by silver and gold contracts. On Hyperliquid, crypto’s leading decentralized trading platform, daily RWA perp volumes hit $2.2 billion for the first time, just three months after launch.
Why it matters: Originally limited to cryptocurrencies, perpetuals are the dominant crypto derivative, offering leveraged price exposure through non-expiring futures contracts. They account for roughly $5 trillion in monthly trading volume, or about 77% of all crypto trading activity.
Market dislocation as catalyst: Although RWA perps launched as early as October 2024, demand only accelerated in recent months as muted crypto markets coincided with U.S. equities and metals pushing through all-time highs. The resulting divergence pushed traders toward non-crypto price exposure inside crypto-native venues, accelerating activity in RWA perpetuals.
Maturing infrastructure: The foundation for this surge was laid last October, when Hyperliquid activated its HIP-3 upgrade. The change materially expanded the design space for RWA perpetuals, enabling permissionless creation of perp markets for virtually any asset on Hyperliquid’s battle-tested infrastructure and broadening global trader access.
Growing ecosystem: Since then, the market has expanded steadily. Today, Hyperliquid offers 24/7 exposure to roughly 30 equities and commodities, with leverage of up to 25x.
Rising footprint: This expansion is increasingly visible in the data. Open interest across Hyperliquid’s RWA perps stands at about $930 million, representing roughly 10% of total platform open interest and making it the largest venue for these instruments.
Onchain migration: The rise of decentralized venues like Hyperliquid is also eroding CEX dominance, with DEX perp market share increasing from 1.8% in 2023 to 11.7% by November 2024.
CEX counteroffensive: This shift has forced incumbents like Binance, which still controls around 40% of the global crypto perpetuals market, to respond. In early January, Binance launched gold and silver perps, followed by its first equity perp tied to Tesla stock earlier this week.
Legal constraints: Part of Hyperliquid’s growth is also explained by the legal constraints facing centralized and regulated players. In the U.S., single-stock perpetuals are effectively prohibited by legacy securities rules and clearing requirements, sidelining incumbents such as Robinhood and Coinbase.
Europe’s challenge: In Europe, regulatory hurdles exist as well. Offering perpetuals to retail clients requires a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) license under MiFID, while the instruments’ unlimited duration creates uncertainty over their classification as Contracts for Differences (CFDs). If treated as CFDs, EU product rules would cap leverage at 2x, undermining the product’s commercial appeal.
TradFi is (still) watching: Despite these constraints, traditional European market infrastructures are actively assessing how perpetual-style products could be offered within existing regulatory frameworks, according to Blockstories sources familiar with the matter.
Marcin Kaźmierczak is co-founder of RedStone, a leading oracle provider whose HyperStone data feed partially powers RWA perps on Hyperliquid.
There’s real opportunity behind RWA perps, but there are also challenges that need to be solved before adoption can scale.
The main bottleneck is the mismatch between 24/7 perp trading and traditional market hours. RWA perp pricing depends on reliable data from underlying equity and commodity markets. When traditional markets close overnight or on weekends, pricing relies on after-hours venue data, creating gaps that can trigger false liquidations when markets reopen. This lack of reliability limits institutional participation.
The solution will come from traditional venues moving toward 24/7 operations, for example, by moving underlying assets natively onchain. Early signals are already visible: Nasdaq and NYSE are pushing toward equity tokenization and round-the-clock trading, and One Trading recently launched Europe’s first licensed 24/7 equity venue.
