TradFi Perpetuals Outpace Spot RWAs Eightfold on Crypto Exchanges

Trading in traditional financial assets is expanding across the crypto exchanges tracked by CoinGecko, but most activity is not taking place through tokenised spot products.

During the first five months of the year, TradFi perpetual volume exceeded spot RWA trading by more than eight times, according to CoinGecko’s TradFi on Crypto Exchanges 2026 report.

The disparity runs against the industry’s emphasis on tokenised stocks as the main route into traditional markets.

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Exchanges Extend Their Native Trading Model

Rather than reproducing conventional stock-market infrastructure, crypto exchanges are exporting their native perpetual-futures model to equities, commodities, foreign exchange and pre-IPO assets.

That gives crypto-native traders traditional-market exposure through a structure already familiar from digital-asset trading.

CoinGecko tracked a selection of leading centralised and decentralised exchanges from January 2025 to May 2026. Monthly TradFi perpetual volume increased 1,472-fold from $230 million over that period.

The exchanges processed more than $1.32 trillion in 2026 through May, compared with $104.21 billion throughout 2025. Perpetual volume first overtook spot RWA activity in November 2025. By May, Binance, MEXC and Hyperliquid led the segment.

A separate TokenInsight analysis cited in earlier Finance Magnates reporting pointed in the same direction. It found that TradFi perpetual volume nearly quintupled between January and June, even as overall crypto-exchange trading volume declined 8% quarter on quarter.

Listing patterns support the same interpretation. CoinGecko found an average of 75 TradFi perpetual listings per exchange, compared with 37 spot RWAs. Hyperliquid and Aster offered traditional assets only through perpetuals, while Binance, Coinbase, Crypto.com, HTX and OKX recorded only one or two spot RWA listings each during the study period.

Equity-Linked Perpetuals Remain Below 1% of Stock Trading

Monthly volume in equity-linked perpetuals across 13 exchanges rose from $831.17 million in July 2025 to $34 billion in May 2026. Despite that growth, CoinGecko estimated that activity remained below 1% of trading volume in the corresponding traditional stock markets.

The findings come as major platforms broaden their product strategies. Binance describes its combination of crypto, equities, payments and investing as a financial super app. Coinbase has outlined similar ambitions, while Robinhood is expanding its multi-asset ecosystem and placing tokenisation at the centre of its capital-markets strategy.

Tokenised securities remain strategically relevant to those broader platforms. Across CoinGecko’s sample, however, current activity indicates that crypto exchanges are expanding into traditional finance mainly by adapting their existing derivatives infrastructure rather than replicating conventional equity markets on-chain.