RWA Perpetuals Hit $18.8B Daily, Capturing 18.5% of Futures Volume

Real-world asset derivatives surge while separate trader cohorts emerge

Real-world asset perpetual futures volume surged to $18.8 billion daily during the week of September 3-9, 2025, capturing 18.5% of futures trading across Talos-tracked venues, according to market data compiled by the analytics firm. The figure marks a sharp climb from less than $1 billion in January 2025.

The expansion reflects a structural shift in how crypto exchanges deploy capital and engineering resources. Derivatives contracts now wrap exposure to oil, gold, stocks, indices, and pre-IPO companies using the same perpetual structure that originally served crypto-native assets. Oil led weekly gains as Brent crude crossed $100, demonstrating how crypto venues capture trading around events unrelated to cryptocurrency.

Wallet data reveal that RWA and crypto markets are attracting mostly separate trader cohorts. Between January 1 and June 30, 2025, DefiLlama tracked 169,514 new wallets classified as RWA-first, representing 31.7% of all new wallets. Those RWA-first wallets generated $111.6 billion in trading volume, or 31.5% of new-user volume, yet produced only 8.3% of main trading fees.

The cohort split runs deeper. RWA-first wallets retained 83.6% of their volume in RWA markets, with 80.9% never crossing into other market segments. Conversely, 82% of Other-first wallets never entered RWA markets, though they directed 22.8% of their volume to RWA products, accounting for 40% of RWA-market volume overall.

On individual exchanges, traditional-asset perpetuals now command significant share. Hyperliquid reported traditional-asset perpetuals at 28% of its futures volume, while Binance’s traditional-asset perpetuals reached 24.8% of its futures mix. Crypto-perpetual volume declined over the comparison period as total futures activity remained roughly flat, with traditional-asset contracts filling the gap.

Centralized-exchange volume rose 12.7% month over month in August 2025 to $4.29 trillion, with spot volume climbing 18.7% and derivatives rising 11.3%. Traditional-asset perpetual volume increased 2.37% to $602 billion.

Hyperliquid’s fee structure reflects the shift. The exchange reported gross fees of $320 million in the first half of 2025 and $419.3 million in the first half of 2026. Core protocol revenue stood at $317.5 million in the first half of 2025 and $305.3 million in the first half of 2026. Total open interest on Hyperliquid rose from $6.6 billion to $8.8 billion in September.

Exchange listing activity accelerated in Q2 2025, with 351 new listings across 10 major centralized exchanges, including 42 tokenized asset additions. Gate delisted 573 tokens in the first half of 2025, representing 60% of all delistings tracked across major venues.

Early adoption patterns on Hyperliquid’s tokenized-stock product, bStocks, show cross-market participation. Among early bStocks users, 58.5% also used perpetuals, direct equities, or both, suggesting some trader overlap despite the broader separation between RWA-first and crypto-first cohorts.