On-Chain Perpetuals for Real-World Assets Surge 37% in Four Months

On-chain real-world asset perpetuals have seen a significant surge in volume over the past four months, doubling and reaching a peak of 37% share of daily on-chain perpetuals volume. This growth is attributed to regulated and centralized venues expanding their exposure to products linked to equities, commodities, and private companies through perpetual contracts.

The market remains smaller than established futures and crypto perpetuals markets, being 30-60 times smaller despite rapid growth. Two prominent use cases have emerged: weekend trading exposure and pre-IPO price discovery. Traders are using perpetual contracts to take positions when traditional exchanges are closed and gain synthetic exposure to private companies before public listing.

Centralized exchanges have entered the market, offering round-the-clock or near-round-the-clock access to tokenized equities and pre-IPO contracts. However, volume and open interest on centralized exchanges remain low compared to leading on-chain venues, with a higher churn rate indicating a less stable user base.