Tokenized equity perps drive RWA trading boom to $470 billion monthly volume

Tokenized real-world asset (RWA) perps have been the clearest crypto growth story of the year.

Monthly volumes across exchanges for these assets have grown from just $85 billion in January to around $470 billion in June, a 450% increase within just six months. The value prop for these products is clear: giving leveraged, 24/7, borderless exposure (and in Hyperliquid’s case, without KYC) to instruments that otherwise trade on limited hours in traditional, KYC-gated brokerages.

Within the broader RWA category, tokenized equities have been the more popular asset class to trade over tokenized commodities.

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Tokenized equity perp volumes grew by roughly 7x from January to June, led by pre-IPO stocks such as SpaceX (SPCX), as well as single-stock semiconductor names such as MU, SNDK, SK-HYNIX and INTC, among others. SPCX was the single most-traded equity perp across all crypto exchanges in June with over $66 billion traded as it IPO'd in mid-June.

The dominant platforms facilitating RWA perps are quite concentrated at the top, with Binance, Hyperliquid and OKX making up over 80% of all tokenized RWA perps volume in June. Binance alone accounts for nearly half of all the category’s volume. Hyperliquid remains the standout onchain venue in an otherwise centralized field, while smaller onchain platforms like Ostium and Lighter sit well behind.

This is an excerpt from The Block's Data & Insights newsletter. Dig into the numbers making up the industry's most thought-provoking trends.