Since early 2025, cryptocurrency exchanges have undergone a remarkable transformation, evolving beyond pure digital asset trading to increasingly offer access to traditional financial assets. Developments in regulation, a surge in tokenized asset issuers, and enhanced distribution infrastructure have rapidly driven the adoption of stocks, ETFs, commodities, forex pairs, and pre-IPO company contracts on crypto trading platforms.
Rising listing numbers for RWA products on exchanges
According to CoinGecko’s research covering January 2025 to May 2026, both centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges witnessed a striking surge in transactions linked to real world assets (RWAs) and traditional financial products. Perpetual futures, in particular, have far outperformed spot RWA markets in growth and volume.
The report identified MEXC, Gate, and WEEX as the exchanges listing the highest number of spot RWA products and TradFi-focused perpetual futures since the start of 2025.
During this period, MEXC listed a total of 358 products, comprising 199 spot RWA and 159 TradFi perpetual futures. Gate reached 224 RWA listings (78 spot, 146 perpetual), while WEEX posted 192 assets (84 spot, 108 perpetual).
Most exchanges prioritized perpetual futures over spot markets. Hyperliquid and Aster, for example, offered only perpetual RWA products. Meanwhile, major players like HTX, Binance, Crypto.com, Coinbase, and OKX listed just one or two spot RWA assets in the last 17 months. On average, exchanges hosted 37 spot RWA products but 75 perpetual contracts each.
Perpetual RWA trading volume hits $347 billion milestone
Perpetual futures tied to RWAs soared from $230 million in trading volume at the start of 2025 to $347.17 billion by May 2026—a staggering growth of roughly 1,472 times. This surge marks a record pace for TradFi integration on crypto venues.
In the first months of 2026 alone, TradFi perpetual futures markets recorded a total volume exceeding $1.32 trillion, far surpassing the $104.21 billion transacted throughout all of 2025.
While demand for spot and perpetual RWA products was fairly balanced in 2025, the landscape shifted dramatically in 2026. TradFi perpetuals volumes exceeded spot RWA trades by over eight times. Notably, in November 2025, perpetual futures volumes reached $26.39 billion, overtaking spot’s $17.70 billion for the first time.
On this front, Binance, MEXC, and Hyperliquid emerged as dominant players. Binance recorded $498.66 billion in TradFi perpetual trading over 17 months, trailed by MEXC with $323.86 billion and Hyperliquid’s $272.39 billion.
Nvidia, Micron, and Circle lead in tokenized stock trading
Perpetual futures volumes for tokenized stocks also experienced robust expansion. Monthly turnover soared from $831.17 million in July 2025 to $34 billion in May 2026—a near 40-fold jump during this period.
Heavily traded equities included Nvidia and Tesla, while Micron, benefitting from AI-focused hype, saw its volume catapult from $736.21 million in April 2026 to $13.16 billion in May 2026.
While Bitget led tokenized stock perpetual trading in November 2025, Hyperliquid and Binance claimed the top spots by May 2026. Binance captured a 43.65% market share.
Nevertheless, the trading volume for tokenized stocks still trails far behind traditional equity markets. CoinGecko’s analysis shows these products comprise less than 1% of total trading volume seen in conventional stock exchanges.
SpaceX dominates pre-IPO tokenized contract markets
In the realm of tokenized contracts for pre-IPO companies, SpaceX attracted the most attention. Its perpetual futures amassed $305 million in monthly volume in May 2026, securing a 43.55% share of the segment.
Following SpaceX, AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic ranked highly. Together, these three contracts accounted for 95.62% of all pre-IPO perpetual trading volume in May.
From November 2025 onward, Hyperliquid initially dominated pre-IPO perpetual trading. However, as platforms like OKX, WEEX, and Binance entered the fray, competition heated up. Binance, despite launching its pre-IPO products on May 21, quickly established itself as a major platform in this field.
SpaceX contract prices converge across exchanges
Ahead of its expected Nasdaq listing, pricing for SPCX contracts varied significantly between exchanges. While trading at about $170 on Binance and WEEX, their price hovered closer to $155 on Coinbase, Gate, and OKX.
Once IPO details became public, prices converged to the $160–165 range by June 10, then surged above $180 in the final two days before the listing.
Despite high volatility on listing day, SpaceX’s pre-IPO token contracts closed at an average of $157—about 4.67% above the SPCX opening price of $150.
The findings indicate that crypto exchanges now view RWAs and TradFi products not simply as supplementary offerings but as central sources of growth and liquidity. The rapid ascent of perpetual futures underscores the growing prominence of tokenized traditional assets within the evolving digital asset ecosystem.
