Real-world asset futures trading has climbed from $760 million in October 2025 to $107.6 billion in July 2026, a 142-fold increase that placed the category roughly level with crypto futures volume of $105.7 billion, according to a joint report from OKX and Token Terminal.
The shift followed the Oct. 10, 2025 liquidation event, when more than $19 billion in leveraged crypto futures positions were wiped out across 1.6 million accounts—about nine times larger than the previous record. Bitcoin, Ether and Solana futures lost part of their share after the sell-off, while contracts linked to commodities, public companies and private firms attracted more activity.
Early RWA growth was led by commodities. Following strikes on Iran, daily volume in a West Texas Intermediate oil contract increased 149-fold within nine days. Commodities became the largest RWA futures segment in January and represented 70% of category volume in March, before falling to 14% by July as equity-linked contracts took over. Monthly volume across four semiconductor and memory-related names rose from $600 million to $45.3 billion as memory prices increased.
Pre-IPO futures added another $10.9 billion in monthly volume within their first three months, with SpaceX leading the category. Coinbase introduced a SpaceX-linked perpetual contract with up to five times leverage, settled in USDC, but excluded users in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Singapore, India and Australia. The product provided price exposure rather than equity ownership. A SpaceX pre-IPO perpetual market also launched through Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 framework in May.
Separately, Dragonfly Capital Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi said RWA perpetual volumes across exchanges reached about $470 billion in June, up from $85 billion in January, with Binance, Hyperliquid and OKX accounting for more than 80% of the category. On Hyperliquid, HIP-3 permissionless perpetual markets rose to nearly 50% of perp volume earlier this summer, up from roughly 2% at the start of the year.
Qureshi argued the industry is entering a maturation phase that will require multiple specialized blockchains for institutional compliance. “Crypto native assets are great, but they’re not the lion’s share of what matters in the world,” he said, adding that institutions such as Goldman Sachs and BlackRock will need dedicated blockchain environments. He compared blockchains to cities, saying no single network will be winner-take-all.
