Real-world-asset perpetual futures have exploded past tokenized asset markets in trading volume, according to a July 31 opinion piece by Martin Lee, markets insight lead at DWF Labs, published on CoinDesk. Lee points to a decisive gap: onchain tokenized assets total roughly $34 billion, excluding an additional $300 billion in tokenized dollars, while RWA perpetuals volume reached $347 billion in May 2026 alone.
That May figure represents a 1,472x increase from just $230 million in RWA perps volume at the start of 2025. By May 2026, RWA perps had facilitated $1.32 trillion cumulatively, already 13 times the total volume recorded across all of 2025. Daily open interest on decentralized exchanges hit a new high of $4.5 billion in July.
A Rapidly Growing Share of Onchain Trading
RWA perps accounted for just 1.3% of all onchain perpetual volume at the start of the year. That share has since climbed to 31%, Lee writes, reflecting a shift in trader preference toward derivatives that track real-world assets rather than holding the tokenized assets themselves.
Perps Outpace Spot in Growth and Accuracy
Comparing equity-linked products between March and May 2026, Lee notes that equity perp volume ran 13 to 20 times higher than tokenized equity spot volume. Wallets trading equity perps also grew faster, expanding roughly 33% month-over-month compared with 17% growth for spot tokenized-equity wallets, even though the spot side had more total wallets (180,845 versus 24,378).
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Lee cites two examples to argue perps react faster to real-world information than regulated markets. During the Iran conflict, he says, oil perpetuals on Hyperliquid moved to reflect the geopolitical situation before CME oil futures markets reopened. In the Cerebras IPO in May 2026, Hyperliquid's pre-IPO perpetual priced the stock at $354, within about 1% of the $350 opening price on Nasdaq — despite traditional bankers setting the IPO price at $185 the night before.
Mainstream Platforms Are Following
Lee also points to Robinhood's decision to offer RWA perpetuals to its European customers as evidence that mainstream platforms are embracing the format. He argues perpetuals will keep outpacing tokenization because they trade 24/7, carry no expiration date, avoid the complex Greeks associated with options, and let markets innovate faster than regulated tokenization infrastructure allows.
