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For most of 2025, gold was king on crypto exchanges. Precious metals perpetual futures rode a wave of record commodity prices, drawing traders who wanted 24/7 leveraged exposure without touching a traditional brokerage account. That reign is over.
As of June 30, 2026, open interest in US stock perpetual futures on major centralized crypto exchanges hit $2.01B, overtaking precious metals at $1.69B. The crossover happened on June 18, and the gap has only widened since.
A 77-fold surge in 18 months
The broader category of traditional finance assets traded on crypto exchanges, sometimes called “crypto TradFi,” has grown at a pace that makes even crypto-native rallies look modest. Total open interest across six tracked exchanges climbed from roughly $60M in January 2025 to $4.67B by the end of June 2026. That’s a 77-fold increase in about a year and a half.
Trading volume tells an even more dramatic story. In the first half of 2026 alone, combined spot and perpetual futures volume for TradFi products reached $1.45 trillion, approximately 10 times the entire volume recorded across all of 2025.
US stocks in particular saw a volume spike of 337% month-over-month in June 2026, landing at $189.84B. Precious metals, by contrast, peaked earlier in March 2026 at $236.76B before fading.
If you’re wondering what’s driving the equity side: semiconductor stocks and anticipation around high-profile IPOs, including SpaceX, appear to be the primary catalysts.
Perpetuals dominate, and it’s not close
One of the more striking data points buried in this trend is the near-total dominance of perpetual futures over spot trading. In June 2026, perps accounted for 98.5% of all trading volume in crypto TradFi products.
Binance leads the pack with more than 50% of trading volume in June 2026, though market leadership has shifted among exchanges over the past 18 months. OKX and other platforms have taken turns at the top as product offerings expand.
Total market capitalization of TradFi assets on crypto exchanges grew from $1.41B at the start of 2025 to a peak of $7.50B in early February 2026, settling back to $6.59B by the end of June.
Why crypto exchanges are eating into traditional brokerage territory
Data from the CoinGecko report underlying these figures suggests traders are increasingly favoring longer-term positions over rapid-fire scalps.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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