Traditional-asset perpetual futures on crypto exchanges rose from less than $1bn in January to $18.8bn between 3 and 9 September, increasing their share to 18.5% of futures trading across the venues tracked by Talos.
Perpetual contracts, once primarily associated with cryptocurrency, are now being used to trade exposure to equities, commodities, indices and pre-IPO companies. Talos found that crypto-perpetual volumes fell over the same period, while overall futures activity remained broadly stable as contracts linked to traditional assets filled the gap.
The shift creates a fresh source of competition for altcoins. Traders can now access leverage, volatility and 24-hour markets without buying a new token, while familiar assets such as oil, gold and stocks are available through the same crypto platforms and collateral systems.
Hyperliquid’s data suggests most customers remain focused on one market. Traditional-asset perpetuals accounted for 28% of futures volume on Hyperliquid and 24.8% on Binance in Talos’s sample. Oil recorded the biggest weekly rise after Brent crude moved above $100, illustrating how crypto exchanges can attract activity linked to an event outside the cryptocurrency market.
Centralised-exchange trading also grew in August, according to CoinDesk Research. Total volume increased 12.7% month-on-month to $4.29tn, with spot trading up 18.7%, derivatives rising 11.3% and traditional-asset perpetuals increasing 2.37% to $602bn. Both crypto and traditional-asset trading expanded, meaning substitution may happen within particular accounts or venues even as the two markets grow overall.
Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 framework allows outside developers to launch markets linked to shares and commodities. DefiLlama identified 169,514 new wallets as “RWA-first” between 1 January and 30 June, based on their first trade. They represented 31.7% of new wallets and generated $111.6bn, or 31.5%, of new-user trading volume.
However, those wallets produced only 8.3% of the main trading fees paid by new users. They kept 83.6% of their activity in real-world asset markets, while “Other-first” wallets, which initially traded crypto or another non-RWA product, directed 22.8% of their volume into RWA markets and generated about 40% of RWA-market volume.
A follow-up analysis found that 80.9% of RWA-first wallets never traded in the other category, while 82% of Other-first wallets never entered RWA markets. The smaller group that did move between the two markets included the most frequent traders.
Altcoins are also competing with a more selective listing environment. CryptoRank recorded 351 new listings across 10 major centralised exchanges in the second quarter, the lowest total since the third quarter of 2023. Tokenised assets accounted for 42 additions, while categories linked to the previous speculative cycle weakened.
Gate accounted for 573 removals, almost 60% of delistings in the first half, although MEXC was largely excluded because it rarely reported delistings. The data does not establish that RWA trading caused those removals.
Binance Research found that 58.5% of early bStocks users also traded perpetuals, direct equities or both, showing overlap but not whether investors moved money away from altcoins.
Hyperliquid’s fee structure adds another dimension. HIP-3 deployers can retain up to 50% of trading fees, while fees sent to the protocol’s Assistance Fund are converted into HYPE and burned. Only part of builder-market activity reaches those mechanisms, and HYPE’s price remains dependent on demand, liquidity and wider market conditions.
Figures from 21Shares showed gross fees rising from $320m in the first half of 2025 to $419.3m in the first half of 2026, while core protocol revenue fell from $317.5m to $305.3m. As builder markets took a larger share of activity, fees and retained revenue moved in opposite directions.
Hyperliquid’s total open interest then rose from $6.6bn to $8.8bn in September, although HIP-3’s share fell from 34% to 25%. Traditional-asset markets can therefore replace crypto volume in one period or expand alongside it in another, increasing pressure on altcoins for traders’ attention and capital.
