RWA Futures Surpass Crypto Futures on Narrow Measure

A recent report from OKX and Token Terminal suggested that real-world-asset (RWA) futures on trade.xyz surpassed crypto futures on Hyperliquid in July, with $107.6 billion of RWA-contract volume compared to $105.7 billion of crypto-contract volume.

However, a closer look at the data reveals that this crossover was limited to a selected-venue comparison and does not represent an industry-wide shift in market leadership. In fact, broader datasets confirm that RWA perpetuals are growing quickly, but they do not show a comparable takeover of crypto derivatives as a whole.

The report tracked July 1 through July 30 and found that RWA volume on trade.xyz reached $107.6 billion, slightly above $105.7 billion of crypto-perpetual volume on Hyperliquid. But this selected series is narrower than the OKX summary suggests, and its data can show only what's happening on that platform, not the whole market.

Broader July measurements from CoinDesk Research and CoinMarketCap confirm that RWA perpetuals are growing rapidly, but they do not establish a comparable takeover of crypto derivatives. For instance, CoinDesk found $460 billion of July RWA perpetual volume on centralized exchanges, which is about 15.2% of the total CEX derivatives volume.