Traditional-Asset Perpetuals Hit $18.8 Billion in Daily Volume

Daily trading in perpetual futures tied to traditional assets reached $18.8 billion across tracked crypto venues during Sept. 3-9. The contracts made up 18.5% of total futures volume across those venues, extending a market that had recorded less than $1 billion in daily volume in January.

The figures describe a growing share of crypto-venue trading in contracts linked to familiar financial markets. They do not mean traditional stocks, commodities and currencies themselves trade on those venues.

The percentages differ by venue: traditional-asset contracts represented 28% of futures volume on Hyperliquid and 24.8% on Binance during the same period. Each figure uses that venue’s own futures volume as its denominator, while the 18.5% figure covers all tracked venues.

Perpetual futures have no fixed expiration date. Periodic funding payments between traders are designed to keep a contract’s price aligned with the spot price of the asset it references. This structure lets the derivative continue without a scheduled settlement date.

One institutional route into the market is Ripple Prime’s traditional-asset swap offering, launched Oct. 15. Ripple Prime serves as principal for swaps referencing perpetual futures listed by Trade.xyz on Hyperliquid. The contracts cover more than 100 reference markets, including equities, equity indexes, exchange-traded funds, metals, energy and foreign exchange. Institutional clients including Virtu are trading them, and the swaps trade and settle around the clock.

Clients can cross-margin the swaps with other supported assets and use Ripple USD (RLUSD) as collateral where available. The offering is available under Ripple Prime’s CIV BVI license, with plans to expand into additional regions. “RWA swaps are where traditional and digital markets meet,” said Michael Higgins, international CEO of Ripple Prime.

Market-data access has also expanded. Users can monitor streaming prices for selected Hyperliquid perpetuals through a Bloomberg Terminal market-data screen; the feature provides price monitoring, not trade execution.

In the United States, a May 29 order permitted a registered exchange to list a Bitcoin (BTC) perpetual contract. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s accompanying policy statement says contracts tied to other asset classes require case-by-case review and approval. That exchange approval was separate from Ripple Prime’s swaps.