Crypto Exchanges Surge into Traditional Assets, Trading Volume Reaches $1.45 Trillion
The crypto exchange industry has witnessed a significant shift in the past 18 months. Major centralized exchanges, including Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, and MEXC, have expanded into traditional asset classes such as stocks, precious metals, commodities, and forex.
This growth has been substantial, with the market capitalization of actively-traded crypto TradFi assets increasing by 366.7% from $1.41 billion to $6.59 billion between January 2025 and June 2026. Trading volume reached a staggering $1.45 trillion in H1 2026, roughly ten times the entire volume generated in 2025.
The dominant mechanism for trading traditional assets on these exchanges is perpetual futures, which accounted for approximately 98.5% of activity in June 2026. Open interest, a measure of active positions rather than churn, moved from $60 million in January 2025 to a peak of $4.67 billion by June 30, 2026, a roughly 77-fold rise.
Binance leads the market with over half the market share among the six exchanges as of June 2026, followed closely by MEXC and Bitget. The rotation from precious metals to US stocks is also noteworthy, driven by speculative interest in semiconductor-related stocks and anticipation around a potential SpaceX IPO.